Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for poultry farms.
A checklist built from how poultry farms work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Flock and shed register
- Daily mortality and culls
- Feed issue and bin stock
- Weights and growth curve
- Vaccination and medicine log
- Egg collection and grading
- Lift, weighment and sale
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For farm owners
- For shed supervisors
- For the feed and medicine store
- For the veterinary adviser
- For accounts
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Flock summary with placement, mortality, feed used and final feed conversion
- Mortality by shed, day and recorded cause
- Feed received, issued and left in each bin
- Sample weight against breed target by week
- Vaccination and medicine courses with withdrawal end dates
- Egg production, grade split and rejects by layer shed
- Grower settlement sheets with the figures behind each line
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- WhatsApp or other messaging
- SMS
- Weighbridge slip entry
- Accounting export
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Is it built for broilers, layers or both?
- How does it find the cause of poor conversion?
- Can a supervisor enter the sheet from inside the shed itself?
- Does it warn about medicine withdrawal?
- Can it record deliveries of chicks from several hatcheries?
- Does it handle contract growers?
- How are egg counts agreed with dealers?
- Can our existing flock records be moved in?
- What does it cost for one farm, and can we see it on our own flock records?
- Do you track sheds with sensors?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- The daily sheet never reaches the office
- Poor conversion has no visible cause
- Medicine and withdrawal dates are remembered
- Egg counts differ at each hand-over
- Grower settlements are argued
Prefer to talk it through? See the poultry farms page.