How To Calculate Broiler Feed Consumption (3 Easy Methods)

Are you looking to calculate feed consumption for your broiler farming project?

Calculating broiler feed

The aim of broiler farming is optimal quality weight gain.

Broilers are past masters (in a livestock sense) of converting grain into premium meat-based protein.

And the job of the broiler farmer is to put the most advantageous feed into his flock to achieve maximum benefit.

Broiler feed consumption

Broilers consume feed at different rates throughout their life span, from brooder to finisher. It literally changes day by day according to their growth.

The larger the bird, the greater its food demand.

Keeping record of your broiler’s feed consumption and plotting it against a standard helps you benchmark performance to stay on target.

Why it’s important to calculate broiler feed consumption

Keeping ample feed inventory on hand and ‘no more than’, provides a Just-In-Time sensitivity to resource management.

This means your farm doesn’t lose out on the cost of stockpiling inventory, nor does it run low of feed at critical times…

…but rather it maintains just enough. This is most profitable for you in the long run.

Methods for calculating broiler feed consumption

For calculating the broiler feed consumption of your poultry farm, use one of these methods below:

1. Manual

Steps

1. Get a standard broiler feeding chart from a reputable breeder, like this one from Cobb Vantress featuring their 500 strain.
2. Using Google sheets or Excel, for example, line up the daily feed intake figures in a column next to the age in days as the first column.
3. In a third column, insert corresponding formulas alongside each feed consumption figure multiplying this by the number of birds in your flock.
4. Add subtotal or cumulative figures in further columns.

2. Try The Broiler Feed Consumption Calculator

This method is guaranteed to save you time inputting figures and writing formulas into a spreadsheet. Plus, this calculator is free to use and will even email you the data after each use. (*Note: this calculator is for single flock farming models only):

Use instructions

Part a. Calculate daily/weekly broiler flock consumption

1. Input the number of birds in your flock
2. Select the age in days with the drop down box.
3. Input the quantity of broiler feed per bag
4. Input the cost of broiler feed in your local currency

Part b. Calculate the cumulative running total of your broiler flock feed consumption from day 1 to current day

1. Input age in days

Are you rearing multiple broiler flocks, with different ages and want to calculate feed consumption? Use the following method…

3. Poultry Project Reporter 2.0

Calculating the feed consumption of a single broiler flock is pretty much a straight line formula.

However, multiple flocks at various ages introduces some real complexities with all the different variables involved.

Couple this with:

• each flock going to market at different times with replacement chicks arriving,
• then packaging up the data into a 6 year forecast

…your dexterity with spreadsheet will be seriously challenged.

Not to mention the tedious job of inputting all the raw data.

To bypass these complexities, I recommend using Poultry Project Reporter 2.0 – it’s the fastest and most accurate method of producing a multi-flock broiler feed consumption calculation.

The reporter includes the following data points:

• choice of broiler flock rearing model (single flock, four flock and eight flock)
• bird mortality adjustment
• cost of broiler feed
• 6 year broiler feed consumption figures
• 6 year broiler feed cost
• PDF-version by email
• total time taken: 30 seconds

And reassuringly the figures originate from the official Cobb 500 broiler consumption data table.

Want to plan some scenarios based on a variety of rearing models?

The reporter is instant. All you need to do is click the drop down box and select the relevant broiler rearing model:

Choose your preferred broiler rearing model AIAO (single flock All-In-All-Out model), 4+1 (4 flock model) or 8+2 (8 flock model) and your previous figures are corrected instantaneously.

Simple.

Want a PDF version of your broiler feed consumption?

The software generates you a PDF versions at the click of a button – saving you hours of time with desktop publishing:

At the single click of the submit button perfectly formatted PDF-version of the feed consumption data will be sat in your email inbox ready for viewing.

This is ideal for building your own investment proposal or poultry farming project report.