6 Factors That Affects Broilers Growth And Production

Upon giving ideas about where to buy the best broiler for you to stock, I have been asked openly and privately on the fastest growing breed of broiler. 

This post will address the factors that make you believe that one hatchery's day old broiler chicks are better than the others. 

As much as possible, I will try to be very explicit in simple language for any reader to understand even though questions can still be asked. 

To continue, I wish to add that I will try as much as possible not to directly promote a particular hatchery over others but state the issues as they are based on joint findings of farmers. There is a distinction between a hatchery and a broiler breed. 

Therefore, for the purpose of understanding of this post, kindly go through the earlier post as I will not mention or describe any broiler by its hatcher/hatchery but by their breed names. 

Now to the most popular broiler breeds in Nigeria, we have Cobb500, Arbor Acre also called AA, Arbor Acre plus also known as AA+, Ross308 and Marshall.

Sad, as it is that most people do not know that different broiler breeds exist, they base their judgement on broiler performance erroneously on a limited scope in terms of the name of the hatchery that they buy from. 

Hence you read or hear Mr. A  claims that Agrited is the best, Mrs. B claims Bounty Harvest is the best, Mr. O claims Olam is the best, Miss Z claims Zartech is the best, Chief S claims Sayed is the best and so on. 

Whereas, they hardly understand the details of what is involved in the differences in performance of what they assume to know.

Now, talking about the most popular breeds of BROILERS in Nigeria, we shall quickly look at what each of them has to offer a farmer so that we can be better guided in making choices of what to stock. 

But before the analysis, it is good to also look at some factors that we should consider such that if those factors vary, a farmer may end up having a bad experience even from a hatchery he or she once praised.

Factor 1: The different breeds hatched by a hatchery.

There are some hatcheries that produce only one breed of broiler while others produce more than one breed. 

If you book day old broiler chicks  from a hatchery that hatches different breeds, chances are that you may get different results under the same conditions in one set from another set of booking from the same hatchery. 

When that happens depending on the breed you got first, your first or next set may not be satisfactory to you in terms of what you want.

Factor 2: Age of parent Stock/Size of day old chicks.

This one is a bit technical. I always advise any serious poultry farmer that have reached me privately on the performance of their birds to make sure that he or she has a weighing scale to monitor the growth of their birds as mere saying "my fowl big well well'" is not the right assessment of performance. 

A scale is a standardized method because my concept of big may be your concept of average or small. But 3Kg is the same all over. 

Still on this, you will agree with me that young parent stock as with other young laying hens start with laying small eggs. As they grow older, their eggs get bigger. 

By extension, a small egg produces a small day old chick while a bigger egg produces a bigger day old chick. When I receive my day old chicks, I weigh each carton on a digital scale with the chicks inside. 

After removing the chicks, I weigh the empty carton and subtract from the combined weight of the carton and chicks to get the weight of the chicks. 

I divide the weight of the chicks with the total number of chicks in the carton to get the average weight of a chick at day old or day 2 as they actually get to me on day 2 even though we claim they are one day old. 

Why do I do that? By knowing how big or small they are, I can monitor their weekly growth compared to a performance chart that I found online depending on their breed. 

I actually found out that day old broilers tend to attain about ten times their day old weight within the first two weeks on the average. 

Therefore, if they arrived on day 1 at an average weight of 32g, I shouldn't expect them to be of the same weight as when I got day old chicks that weighed as much as 50g at day old.

Factor 3: Rearing conditions.

Factor 4: Breed.

Factor 5: Feed variation and quality.

Factor 6: Disease resistance in relation to hatchery, your environment and prevalent diseases.

The Basic Contents Of Template For Business Plans

Executive Summary:

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Name of business________________________________________

Legal form_____________________________________________

Contact address_________________________________________

Business location………………………………………………………………………………………………

Telephone And E-mail______________________________________________

Nature of business_________________________________________

Manufacturer,  Service provider, Trading,  Others, please specify..........

Owner(s)

(Name, Address, Qualification, Function in the business and Relevant experience)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Briefly describe the idea behind your business

_____________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Specify the intended Products or Services

_____________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Describe the intended market ________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

State the total Capital required to  set-up the business___________________________________________________

 

Show the Working capital required for the first one year _______________________________________________

Total  ___________________________________________________

Specify the Source of obtaining capital

Personal savings __________________________________________________

Partner’s contribution  ______________________________________________________

Loan from Family/friend ___________________________________________________

Bank loan  ____________________________________________________

Sale of Asset………………………………………………………………………………………….

Retirement benefits…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Motivation for Starting a business

 

Describe why and how you came up with the business idea

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Explain how you think the Business idea will work and grow

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

State how the business will change your life

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Business Concept  

What  value (new or improved)  does your  business seek to provide?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

State the nature of technology to be used in delivering the value

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Specify the type of product (s) to market

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Explain the unique customer experience to be offered by your product

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

In what sector is your business? State whether in mining/agriculture, manufacturing, services, education, health etc __________________________________________________________________

 

Market

Describe your market—stating the nature of your customers and the segment of the market to served

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Explain key factors affecting the market

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________

 

Explain how you will reach your target market

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Competition

Who are your main local competitors?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Who are the international competitors that offer similar products?

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

What makes your products or services better or different from that of the competitors? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Does your business have any unique feature that will be difficult to imitate by competitors?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Supply Links

 What type of inputs do you require for your business?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How and where will you get the inputs for your business (source, price, technology, etc) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Are the key inputs available locally? …………If not how easily will you obtain the supply……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Management

What skills and /or experiences do you have to enable you successfully manage the business?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Who else will work with you to manage your business--partners, co-owners (if any)?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Do you require professionals/people with special skill to run the business?.........if yes are they readily available and affordable? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Business Risks

What risks or challenges do you anticipate that may affect the success of your business (What can stop you from making this business a success)? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

How will you mitigate or reduce these risks?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Finance

State the financial requirements for your business __________________________________________________________________

List the key items you will obtain with the funds

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How do you intend to raise the funds?  __________________________________________________________________

Do you intend to obtain loan?....................................................................................

If yes how much?

……………………………………………………………………………………….

 How long it will take you to repay the loan?

How do you intend to grow the business over the next 5 years?

Illustration of Cash flow and financial statements