At the end of every batch, a farm owner knows two numbers easily: what the buyer paid, and what the feed supplier charged. Between them lies a wide grey zone — chicks, medication, labour, utilities, litter, mortality — and that zone decides whether the batch actually made money or merely rotated cash. Selling without knowing your cost per kilogram of live weight is selling on hope; knowing it during the cycle tells you when to sell, to whom, and what price to walk away from.
What Goes Into Batch Cost
| Component | Typical share | Practical notes |
|---|---|---|
| Feed | 60–70% | The governing item; record it by actual issue to the house, not by purchase invoices |
| Chicks | 15–20% | Chick price × birds placed, later divided over weight sold — not over bird count |
| Medication & vaccines | 3–5% | Charge to the batch on the date given, not spread arbitrarily at month end |
| Labour | 5–8% | The house's share of supervisor and worker pay across the batch days |
| Utilities, litter, gas | 3–5% | The most commonly dropped items in manual costing; they bite in winter |
| Overheads & depreciation | 2–4% | The batch's share of rent or depreciation of houses and equipment |
FCR: the Number That Summarises the Batch
Feed conversion ratio is kilograms of feed consumed divided by kilograms of live weight produced. A worked example: you placed 20,000 birds, the batch consumed 62 tonnes of feed, and you sold 44 tonnes of live weight — FCR = 62 ÷ 44 = 1.41. To feel how sensitive this is: at 1.51 on the same weight you would have needed 66.4 tonnes — 4.4 extra tonnes bought and never turned into meat. On a mid-sized farm, a 0.1 difference in FCR can equal the entire batch margin.
FCR is not calculated once at closing. It is tracked cumulatively every week against the breed curve. An early drift signals a feed, heat, or health problem — all fixable if caught in time. That is the practical difference between software that records and a farm management system that reads the batch while it happens.
Cost per Kilogram Live Weight, Step by Step
Using the same example: feed 62 t × 300 per tonne = 18,600. Chicks 20,000 × 0.35 = 7,000. Medication and vaccines 1,300. Labour 2,100. Utilities and litter 1,150. Overheads 850. Total = 31,000. Live weight sold 44,000 kg, so cost per kg = 31,000 ÷ 44,000 = 0.705 per kg. That is the number you place next to today's market price — not the market's mood, and not last batch's price.
Why It Must Be Calculated During the Cycle, Not After
- The sell decision: after week five daily gain slows while feed intake stays heavy; one extra day can add less weight than it eats. A daily comparison of cost per kg against market price settles the timing.
- The feed decision: a drifting FCR with normal weights points suspicion at feed quality or issue leakage.
- Isolating problems: when cost is computed per house, the outlier house shows up immediately — and behind it is usually ventilation or a worker, not disease.
Common Errors That Make Profit an Illusion
- Ignoring mortality in cost: a dead bird's cost does not vanish; it spreads over the birds you sell. 6% mortality quietly raises your cost per kg.
- Costing feed by purchases instead of actual issue: what you bought this month is not what this batch ate — the difference is inventory, and mixing them corrupts both numbers. See our feed inventory guide.
- Dropping the small items: litter, heating gas, and electricity look marginal, but together they are 3–5% — half of a reasonable margin.
- Mixing two batches in one account: if two placements overlap across houses, without separate cost centres you will never know which batch actually won.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good FCR for broilers?
It varies by breed, selling age, and season; your practical reference is the breed curve you run and batch-to-batch comparison on your own farm. The trend matters more than the absolute number — an FCR worsening across batches deserves investigation.
How do I calculate cost per kg live weight?
Add everything charged to the batch (feed by actual issue, chicks, medication, labour, utilities, overheads) and divide by kilograms of live weight sold. The result is your minimum sell price.
Can software calculate batch cost automatically?
Yes — if transactions are recorded where they happen: feed issue charged to the house at the moment of issue, medication on the day given, and sales invoiced against the batch. The profitability report becomes a by-product of operations, not extra work.
Why does my real profit differ from my manual estimate?
Usually a dropped item (litter, utilities, mortality) or purchases confused with consumption on feed. Automated costing from transactions closes both gaps.
Do I need an accountant to run batch costing?
No. With disciplined field entry inside the system, the reports come out ready. The accountant reviews and interprets — they should not be assembling paper.
Conclusion
Batch cost is not a report prepared after the sale; it is a meter running from placement day. Discipline feed issue per house, track FCR cumulatively, and compare cost per kg with market price before the sell decision — and you will know your profit before the buyer does. Put it into practice with the Mazoon ERP poultry and livestock system.