Case Study Question: Your broiler farm is tightening management processes for monitoring flock mortalities throughout the rearing cycle. You begin by defining a calculation for cumulative daily mortality rate (CDMR).
The first step in defining a formula for calculating cumulative daily mortality rate is to define the logic supporting the calculation.
That is to say, (a) what are we looking to calculate? and, (b) why are we looking to calculate it?
To answer the question, this is what CDMR is:
- Cumulative Daily Mortality Rate is the cumulative result or sum of all daily mortality rates added together leading up to the current day within a broiler rearing cycle.
- We would calculate cumulative daily mortality rate as a key indicator of management performance. It provides a scannable, ‘at-a-glance’ sense of whether your farm ought to be concerned about levels of bird deaths. If CDMR is above performance benchmarks provided by breeders, then this should trigger an immediate managerial investigation and root cause analysis to uncover the cause.
How to calculate cumulative daily mortality rate:
- Calculate the daily mortality rate (DMR)…DMR = total number of dead birds / total number of birds in the flock x 100
- Add the previous daily mortality rate to the current day’s rate = cumulative daily
Having settled on the theory, now you choose to put it into practice.
You begin by building an excel spreadsheet. Next, on the following arrival of broilers you begin counting and recording all mortalities, including cumulative daily mortality rates.
Using the breeder performance charts as a benchmark, you make a comparative analysis against the standard – declaring how your results measure up.
You spot that within the first 7 days (the most vulnerable) period for broiler birds, your mortality rate is a little excessive.
What would your brooder audit look like to identify the root cause?
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