Tag Archives: Financial aspects of poultry farming

Reasons Why Large-Scale Poultry Farms Have Lower Production Costs

Have you ever wondered why your competitors’ products may be significantly cheaper than yours, yet they continue to make massive profits margins? During the recent hike in chicken feed prices, there were calls to enforce a fixed pricing strategy for all Ghanaian poultry farmers. Despite the increase in feed prices, larger poultry farms were still charging relatively lower prices for their eggs. This forced some smaller farmers to attempt replicating the low price strategy to compete with their larger counterparts (this, of course, was a wrong decision). As you’d imagine, many small scale poultry farmers had to close down their farms since it was unsustainable for them to keep charging extremely low prices while the cost of production kept skyrocketing. With that out of the way, let’s delve straight into some reasons why larger-scale operations almost always incur a relatively lower cost per unit production.

Is It Still a Good Idea to Start a Poultry Farm in Ghana?

farmers. Currently, if you want to rear 200 layers, you must prepare to wave a sum of GH₵ 9,000+ goodbye. Oh, wait! You must be thinking GH₵ 9000 is the total startup cost for starting a 200-layer farm. You couldn’t be any further from reality. That amount mentioned will only cover the cost of feed for the first eight months. I have already spoken about the reason why you should make a budget for eight months. Meanwhile, around November 2020, feed costs for the first eight months only amounted to around GH₵ 5,000 for 200 layers.

Why Financial Literacy Is the Key to Success in Livestock Production

Succeeding in livestock farming goes beyond just knowing how to rear animals. Several other factors come into play such as knowing how to make a budget, compensating your employees appropriately and knowing how to expand your farm sustainably.

New Poultry Feed Prices & Their Implications

Poultry farming is no longer a profitable business. I am going to sell off all my birds – a farmer lamented. This and many more complaints have been brought about by the recent hike in feed prices. Around November 2020, you could get a 50kg Layer mash for GH₵ 93. Fast forward to July 2021, the price is now around GH₵ 137 (a 47% increase in feed prices in just seven months). As gloomy as this sounds, all hopes of succeeding in poultry farming is not lost yet, and I will explain why.

Pay Your Farmhands an Above-Average Salary if You Want to Succeed as a Farmer

I recently visited a pig farmer at Benso with our Chief Technical Officer and we had a very lengthy conversation with him (the pig farmer). Upon our conversation, the farmer complained bitterly about how difficult it was for him to find farmhands to work on his farm and worst of all, the ones (farmhands) he could get wouldn’t stick around for even a year.

How to Calculate Profit for Layers

Calculating the profit made in a particular period, say August 2020 is not as simple as calculating that of a merchandising business. Let’s assume we rear 1,000 birds; during the course of August, we sold GH¢ 11,000 worth of eggs and 200 spent layers for GH¢ 4,000 taking our total revenue for the month to GH¢ 13,400.

This is how Your Farm Could Collapse in Only Three Months

It is such as shame that as of today, many farmers still believe that animal husbandry knowledge alone, is enough for them to succeed as poultry farmers. Don’t get me wrong, treating your birds like sh*t wouldn’t help either – not even if you have a PhD in Business Management. All I’m trying to say is having basic financial skills such as making good revenue and cost projections could very well be the difference between success and failure.