01 of 10. What to record every day
A broiler farm needs four records from every shed, every day: mortality, feed, weight and sales. Farm owners call it the M · F · W · S round. If these four are right, almost every other number on the farm can be worked out from them.
Write them down at the shed, at the same time each day. A number written at the shed is better than one remembered in the evening.
| Record | What to write | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Day | The date and the flock’s age in days | Sat 03 Oct · day 23 |
| Shed and flock | The shed and the flock code | Shed 2 · FLOCK-2026-013 |
| Mortality | Birds dead or culled, with the time and cause | 12 birds (4 at 06:10, 8 at 14:40) |
| Feed | Bags issued to the shed | 25 bags |
| Weight | Sample average, lightest and heaviest bird | 1,240 g average |
| Sales | Birds sold, buyer, rate and amount | 2,500 birds · Rehman Traders · Rs 165 a bird · Rs 4,12,500 |
| Notes | Anything unusual: heat, water, a vaccine, a visit | — |
Keep one sheet per shed. Do not add up across sheds on the sheet itself; add up later, from the sheets.
02 of 10. Recording mortality, and why the cause matters
Count the dead birds in each shed at least twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon, and write each count down with the time. Culled birds count as mortality too.
Write a cause next to each count, even a rough one: heat, crowding, legs, sickness, or not known. One bad day tells you little. The same cause three days running tells you where to look.
| Time | Birds | Cause |
|---|---|---|
| 06:10 | 4 | Unknown |
| 14:40 | 8 | Heat stress |
| Flock so far | 190 of 10,030 placed | Livability 98.1% |
Livability comes straight from these counts: the chicks placed that have not died, as a share of the chicks placed. Birds already sold still count. If a count is missed, the flock looks better than it is. Livability is too high, and FCR is too low, because the feed is shared over birds that are no longer there.
Watch for a jump. Poultry Ledger records each death with its cause and warns you, under “Needs attention”, when deaths in a shed jump.
03 of 10. Feed records and the feed store
Feed is the largest cost of a broiler flock, so it needs two records, not one: the bags issued to each shed every day, and the bags left in the store.
For FCR, count the bags issued to the shed, not the bags bought. Feed still in the store has not been eaten, and counting it makes the flock’s FCR look worse than it is.
| Date | Entry | Bags | Left in store |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Sep | In store at day end | — | 120 |
| 01 Oct | Bought | +300 | 420 |
| 01 Oct | Issued to Shed 1 | −39 | 381 |
| 01 Oct | Issued to Shed 2 | −22 | 359 |
| 02 Oct | Issued to Shed 1 | −40 | 319 |
| 02 Oct | Issued to Shed 2 | −23 | 296 |
| 02 Oct | Adjusted (wet bags) | −2 | 294 |
| 03 Oct | Issued to Shed 1 | −42 | 252 |
| 03 Oct | Issued to Shed 2 | −25 | 227 |
Once a week, count the bags in the store and set the count beside the last line of the record. If they do not match, find out why before the next load is ordered. Write down wet or torn bags as an adjustment, and returned bags as a return, or the count will never agree.
In Poultry Ledger, each feed entry takes the bags out of stock by itself, and stock running low shows under “Needs attention”.
04 of 10. Flock records
Each flock gets one record from the day the chicks arrive until the last bird is sold. Give it a code and tie it to one shed, so every daily entry has a home.
| Record | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Flock code and shed | Every daily entry is tied to it. |
| Placement date | This is day 0. The flock’s age, and every breed comparison, counts from here. |
| Breed | Ross 308 and Cobb 500 have different targets for the same age. |
| Chicks placed | The start of the bird count, livability and FCR. |
| Chick cost and supplier | The first cost of the flock, and a due in the supplier’s khata. |
| Closing date and birds sold | Closes the flock so it can be settled. |
Birds alive and age in days follow from these and the daily round. If the daily records are complete, you never need to keep them by hand.
Use one flock code everywhere: on the daily sheet, on each feed issue, on every sale and on the challan. When the flock closes, every entry with that code belongs in its settlement, and nothing else does.
05 of 10. Money: sales, expenses and the khata
Write down every sale and every expense on the day it happens: chicks, feed, medication and vaccines, labour, utilities and transport. Tie each one to a flock where you can, so that flock’s profit comes out right.
Keep a khata for each buyer and supplier: what they owe you, what you owe them, and how old each amount is.
| Entry | Amount (Rs) |
|---|---|
| Sale · 2,500 birds · challan INV-2026-00048 | 4,12,500 |
| Received on the day | −3,02,500 |
| Balance due · Rehman Traders | 1,10,000 |
Then age the dues. A balance from last week is a reminder; one from two months ago is a problem. Poultry Ledger sorts each buyer’s dues into 0–7, 8–30, 31–60 and 61+ days.
Take the Rs 1,10,000 above, from a sale on 3 October. Until 10 October it sits in the 0–7 day column. On 11 October it moves to 8–30 days, and on 3 November to 31–60. If it is still unpaid after 61 days, it is the first due to chase.
If Rehman Traders pays Rs 60,000 on 10 October, the balance falls to Rs 50,000. The challan stays Part paid until the rest comes in.
When a payment comes in, decide which charge it pays. If you do not choose, pay off the oldest due first. That is what Poultry Ledger does when no charge is chosen.
06 of 10. Poultry record keeping: paper vs Excel vs an app
Paper books get wet, go missing, and cannot add themselves up. A number copied wrong is copied wrong for good.
Excel is better, but a cell can be changed by anyone, and nothing records who changed it or when. Totals break when a row is inserted. Over a flock, the numbers drift away from what happened in the shed.
| What it does | Paper register | Excel sheet | Poultry Ledger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adds up the totals | No | Yes, if the formulas are right | Yes |
| Keeps a removed entry | Crossed out, at best | No | Yes, and it can be restored |
| Works without internet | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ages the khata dues | By hand | By hand | Yes, 0–7 to 61+ days |
| Compares with Ross 308 / Cobb 500 | By hand | By hand | Yes, for the flock’s age |
| Hides money from workers | No | Hard | Yes, three roles |
| Challan to the buyer’s WhatsApp | No | No | Yes: you attach the PDF and press send |
Excel is a fair choice for a small farm where one person keeps the books. The trouble starts when several people write in the same file, or when the owner is not on the farm every day.
If you stay with Excel, lock the cells that hold formulas, keep one file per flock, and save a dated copy every week. Then a change can at least be found by setting two copies side by side.
07 of 10. KPIs to track against the breed standard
Three numbers tell you how a flock is really doing: FCR, livability and EPEF. A fourth, weight against the breed target, tells you early.
| Number | How it is worked out | Example |
|---|---|---|
| FCR | feed (kg) ÷ weight gain (kg) | 1.72 |
| Livability | 100 − deaths ÷ placed × 100 | 98.0% |
| EPEF | livability × kg ÷ (age × FCR) × 100 | 308 |
| Weight vs target | sample average − target for the age | 1,900 g vs 2,296 g |
Look at them every week, not only at sale. A flock that falls behind in week three can still be put right; at day 35 it is too late.
Always read FCR with the flock’s age. An FCR of 1.25 is behind the Ross 308 target at day 21 and well ahead of it at day 35, because FCR rises as the birds grow. Compare it with the breed table for the same day, never with another flock’s closing figure.
08 of 10. A simple routine for the week
Good records come from habit, not effort. This is a routine that fits a farm with a few sheds and one office.
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Every day | The M · F · W · S round for each shed. Sales and expenses entered the same day. |
| Two or three times a week | Weigh a sample in each shed and write down the average. |
| Once a week | Compare weight and FCR with the breed target. Look for khata dues older than 30 days. Count the feed bags in stock. |
| When a flock closes | Settle it: sales, costs and profit per bird. Compare it with your past flocks. |
The weekly check is the one most farms skip, and the one that pays. Twenty minutes with the week’s sheets shows a shed falling behind on weight, a buyer who has stopped paying, or feed bags that do not add up, while there is still time to act.
Give each record to one person. When two people share a job, sooner or later each thinks the other one did it.
09 of 10. Broiler profit, worked example
When the last bird is sold, put the flock’s sales and costs on one page. This is the settlement for one example flock, FLOCK-2026-011, closed at day 35 with 9,712 of its 10,000 birds sold.
| Item | Amount (Rs) |
|---|---|
| Sales · 9,712 birds | 28,48,000 |
| Chicks · 10,000 | −6,50,000 |
| Feed · 616 bags | −15,40,000 |
| Medication & vaccines | −1,12,000 |
| Labour, utilities, other | −86,000 |
| Net profit | 4,60,000 |
Read it from the top. Sales is what the buyers paid, or still owe, for the 9,712 birds. Chicks is the cost of all 10,000 day-olds placed, including the 288 that died or were culled. Feed is every bag issued to the shed over 35 days. Medication and vaccines, then labour, utilities and other costs, close the list.
Feed is by far the largest cost: Rs 15,40,000 of the Rs 23,88,000 spent, nearly two-thirds. That is why a small change in FCR moves the profit so much.
The 288 birds that did not reach sale still cost their chick price and the feed they ate before they died. That is why livability matters to profit, not only to the bird count.
Divide the profit by the birds sold to compare flocks of different sizes. Here it is Rs 47 per bird sold. Set it beside the same figure for your last three or four flocks, not beside another farm’s.
10 of 10. Doing it in Poultry Ledger
Poultry Ledger is a Windows app built for this round. You pick a shed and press M, F, W or S. The flock, the khata and the reports update on their own.
Removed entries are kept, not erased, so the numbers cannot be quietly changed. Workers record the day but never see money. It all works offline on the farm PC.
When a flock closes, its settlement comes out of the same entries, with the net profit in figures and in words, ready to print or save as a PDF for your partners.