What is poultry batch size?
Poultry batch size is the number of chicks your poultry farm buys each time to replace ‘spent‘ or sold stock.
Each batch of new birds bought from the hatchery (or breeder) represents new production potential for your farm.
Why is poultry batch size important?
The batch size of chicks that you buy each time is the principal multiplier in your business model.
Everything production-wise works around this number of batch size. It determines the magnitude of your output.
It works as a basic unit of reference for what your farm uses and makes.
Examples
(taken from an example broiler farming project report)
Example: 31,500 broiler chicks per batch.
Best Practices
Add for mortality rate
When buying batches of chicks for your poultry farm,
Always add additional birds to account for expected mortality.
Your future poultry farming profits are all delicately balanced upon your core numbers being sufficient.
Mortality, by nature, erodes the productivity (and therefore profit) of your farm business.
Every bird that dies beyond your business budget actually takes away from your future earnings.
To keep your financial projections accurate,
Your baseline flock number must be consistent.
(Therefore, add to your batch purchases an additional number of birds which you expect would naturally during rearing.)
The remaining number should be the flock capacity which your projections are based on.
Budget very carefully
Batch purchases replenishes your production stock.
Make sure your batch sizes are adequate enough that your overall production capacity is on target.
Also, remember that batch purchases need to tie in with cash availability.
Buying new flocks is the engine that drives your farm production.
Behind feed costs, this constitutes a large cost of goods sold (direct expense).
Your cash flow patterns must therefore support this routine buying.
Provide enough housing space
Your birds require ample space to produce during the rearing cycles.
Follow best practice guidelines for the floor space allocation.
Plan logistics
Getting your new batch of birds safely onto your farm premises is critical to securing consistent income.
Reliable delivery is worth the fee charged.
Healthy happy chicks will support your rearing processes.
Make sure there is enough demand
Demand is the driver for production.
Without the demand, your poultry farm simply cannot survive.
Ensure that your demand throughout all cycles in the year,
Or adjust your batch buying to account for varying patterns of demand.