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:

1. Pick the site and house or houses the birds are going into.
2. Enter the chick count, the source, the breed, and the placement date.
3. If the chicks arrived older than a day (for example after a long transport delay), set the age at placement in days. PoultryDesk uses it to work out the hatch date so the feeding schedule and the flock age line up with the true bird age. Leave it blank for day-old chicks.
4. Optionally set the housing system (deep litter, battery cage, free-range, or barn / aviary). It defaults to whatever the chosen house is set to, so you usually just confirm it.
5. 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 and enter the number of Additional deaths for the day. Each entry is added to the running total (it never replaces an earlier one), so the form shows the current birds alive and the birds alive after your entry before you save. You can add an optional cause. When the selected day already has deaths recorded, choose Edit recorded total to restate that day's total with a reason - PoultryDesk saves the correction as a new event and never edits the original records.
• Feed used - choose Record feed used and enter the quantity. PoultryDesk preselects the feeding-program item when it is available, or the sole eligible Feed item; you can change it before saving. This both records the feed against the lot and draws it down from your inventory balance.
• Feed correction - open the Feed tab, find the day, and choose Correct. Select the contribution, review the before and after quantities, and enter a reason. The correction is saved as a new event; the original remains in the audit history.
• Not fed - on a missing Feed day, choose Not fed and enter the reason. This records an intentional zero so it is not confused with a day that still needs attention.

An explicit Not fed decision also prevents the automatic feeding schedule from generating an estimated Feed record for that Lot and day.

Reconcile the bird count

When you physically count a flock and the number differs from the system count (from unrecorded deaths, a miscount, a cull, or theft), open the lot and choose Reconcile count. Enter the number of birds you counted and a short reason for the difference. PoultryDesk shows the difference (birds short or found) and reconciles the flock's live count to your physical count - it records this as a new event and never edits past records, so mortality and other figures stay honest. The reconciliation appears in the lot's Events history.

Before editing Feed, check Feed on the selected date. Recorded and corrected effective quantities are separate from Queued decisions that have not synced. An unavailable read does not mean no Feed was recorded. Use Retry Feed state to check again; another feed use can still queue offline, but correction and Not fed need a checked day with no queued decisions.

Backfill missed Feed days

Open the Feed round. Manual capture contains the Farm, Lots, Record type and Record date controls for measured entries. Use the Historical tab for Generate missing records, choose Feed, Water or both, and select a range of at most 31 days before Preview records. Historical generation covers scheduled Lots in that range, not just the Manual capture selection. Review the historical bird count, feeding phase, estimated quantity, stock source, cost path, and posting legs. A blocked row explains the missing stock or cost evidence and cannot be confirmed. Confirm generation requires a connection and rechecks the preview before posting. Generated quantities are labelled Estimated; manual Feed entry remains available offline for measured figures. The Automation tab holds each scheduled Lot's daily-generation toggle.

When you change the Feed round date, PoultryDesk reloads the Lots that were active that day and refreshes their bird counts, phase, suggested quantity, Feed item, existing state, and stock-source status before unlocking the grid. Once a date has loaded, measured Feed entries can still be saved or queued offline. Changing to another date needs a connection so PoultryDesk does not reuse stale Lot or stock context.

Record weight samples

For one Lot, choose Record weight and enter each bird's weight in grams, separated by commas (for example 1420, 1385, 1510). You can paste a row from a scale or spreadsheet. PoultryDesk calculates sample size, average, flock uniformity (the share within 10% of the average), and coefficient of variation.

For a round, open Lots > Weight round. Choose Farm, Lots and Date, then enter a sample for each selected active Broiler Lot. All active Lots selects the whole available scope. A multi-Lot round requires review and confirmation. Each result remains independently Saved, Queued or Rejected; retry only rejected samples. Every submission is a new sample, never a correction. Previous samples and the selected-day count are context, not replacement fields. If server history is unavailable, use Retry history; new captures can still queue locally without pretending the server has no samples.

Treatments

Record medications under Health. A treatment may start a withdrawal period that blocks harvest until it clears (see Health and withdrawals).

Review records in the Events tab

Open the Events tab on the flock to review records that do not have their own tab, such as mortality and placements. It is the quickest way to see the flock's mortality history in one place. Filter the register by record type or by date, and read each record's category, timestamp, and details in the table. Records already shown under a data tab (Growth, Feed, Harvest, Health, Finance) are not repeated here, and each row links to the full entry in the audit trail.

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.
• A daily Feed table that distinguishes actual, estimated, not-fed, and missing days. It also shows whether cost is recognized from inventory consumption, was already allocated with a direct expense, or is history-only. Consecutive missing days are grouped into a single range row so long gaps stay easy to scan.
• Feed and medication usage by flock in the inventory ledger.
• A full timeline of every entry for the flock in the audit trail.

See also

• Recording data without a signal
• Raising layers
• Running a hatchery