Raising broilers
Run a broiler placement from chick-in to harvest - mortality, feed, weights, and closeout.
Last updated 2026-07-11
Raising broilers
A broiler flock is saved as a Lot in PoultryDesk. It is one placement of meat birds in one or more houses, tracked from the day the chicks arrive to the day the last bird is harvested. You can always see how many birds are alive, how much feed they have eaten, their average weight, and your feed conversion ratio (FCR).
Before you start
Make sure your site and poultry houses exist (see Sites and houses), and that you have chicks to place - either hatched from your own hatchery set or received from an outside supplier.
Place the lot
Open Broilers, choose New placement, then:
- Pick the site and house or houses the birds are going into.
- Enter the chick count, the source, the breed, and the placement date.
- Submit.
This opens a new broiler flock, labelled as a Lot in the app. Every daily entry is recorded against this flock.
Daily flock records
Open the flock and record what happened during the day. You can record each of these as many times as you need to.
- Mortality - choose Record mortality, enter the count and an optional cause. PoultryDesk keeps a running total and updates the birds-alive figure.
- Feed used - choose Record feed used, pick the feed from your inventory, and enter the quantity. This both records the feed against the lot and draws it down from your inventory balance.
- Weights - choose Record weight, enter the sample size and the average weight (or each individual weight and let the form average them).
- Treatments - record medications under the Health module. A treatment may start a withdrawal period that blocks harvest until it clears (see Health and withdrawals).
Harvest
When birds are ready, choose Record harvest on the lot and enter the number of birds, the total live weight, and the destination. You can harvest in stages - record a harvest each time you take birds out.
If the flock has an active medication withdrawal, harvest is blocked until the withdrawal clears. This protects you from selling birds that are still within a withdrawal window.
Close out the lot
Once every bird is harvested or accounted for, choose Close out lot. PoultryDesk checks that the placed count matches harvested plus died (plus any audited shrinkage) and then computes the final numbers for the lot.
What you get
- A flock dashboard showing birds alive, mortality count and percentage, average weight, total feed used, FCR, days on feed, and the predicted harvest window.
- Feed and medication usage by flock in the inventory ledger.
- A full timeline of every entry for the flock in the audit trail.