Case study: preparing a flock for the end-of-year festivities, from ordering the chicks to the sale

This lesson is part of Free-range poultry and festive markets specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

Mrs Akissi has been rearing white broilers for three years in Bongouanou, on route 2 from Agnibilékrou. In June, she decides to do her first long flock of coloured chickens for Christmas: 1,000 Hubbard Premium chicks, an 8 m by 25 m open-sided house that she adapts to free range, two plots of 1,000 m². This lesson tells her flock from the first call to NEXTEKCI to the last chicken sold on 24 December: the dates, the weighings, the bags, the three alerts, the decisions taken and those that should have been taken beforehand. It is the typical exercise of the specialisation exam: you will be given a flock like this one, and asked to read it.

• ✓Reconstruct the backward plan of a real Christmas flock and check each date
• ✓Read the weekly table of a long flock (weight, gap, deaths, bags, events) and spot the alerts
• ✓Judge the decisions taken at each alert, with the grids of the specialisation
• ✓Draw up the unit count of the flock, name the causes of the gap and write what should have been done beforehand

1. June and July: the decision and the backward plan
2. The flock week by week
3. The three alerts, and what she did
4. The sale, day by day
5. The unit count and the reading
6. What should have been done beforehand, and the next flock
7. Going further

• •Christmas backward plan kept: sale 17-23 December, 91 days, arrival on 17 September, reservation at NEXTEKCI on 28 July, previous flock out on 20 August, 27-day break with works.
• •Three alerts well handled the same day with the grids: heat (week 3), bird of prey (week 7), drop to −11.3% with soft droppings (week 9, veterinarian and correction of the environment).
• •Successful sale: 953 chickens in 8 days, families 40%, ceremonies 20%, maquis 19%, resellers 16%, private individuals 5%; 74% reserved three weeks before; 3.4 kg males to families.
• •Unit count: 2,917 kg sold, 186 bags, actual ratio 3.19, 6.4 bags per 100 kg against 5.9 benchmark; 47 losses (4.7%); causes in order of weight: mud in front of the pop-holes and slow rotation, heat, insufficient shade, losses.
• •What should have been done beforehand: gravel to 2 m and 125 m² of shade during the break, weekly rotation from the rains, droppings examinations at weeks 6 and 8 planned with the veterinarian; done for flock B, which reached 5.9.