Catching and loading without losing weight
Six weeks of work is settled in one night by people who are paid by speed. Catching is where flocks lose weight, gain bruises and get downgraded.
Everything on a broiler farm is measured except the last four hours. Catching is usually done at night, by a team that is not yours, paid by the bird or by the load, and it routinely costs more than a week of poor feed management.
What you lose, and where
Live weight. Birds held off feed lose weight continuously. The gut empties, and after that the loss is body tissue. The longer between last feed and the scale, the less you are paid for.
Bruising and downgrades. A bruise takes time to develop, so damage done at catching shows at the plant, not in your shed. Wings and legs are where rough handling shows.
Deaths on arrival. Every one is a bird you raised for free. On hot nights this is the largest single loss.
Feed withdrawal: the balance
You need the gut reasonably empty at slaughter — a full gut contaminates the carcass — but every extra hour costs weight.
The commonly used window is 8–12 hours from last feed to slaughter, counting the time on the truck and the wait at the plant, not just the time in the shed. Farms that count only shed time routinely end up at 16 hours without realising it.
Water stays available until the birds are caught. Withdrawing water with feed is a mistake that costs both welfare and weight, and it is common.
Before the team arrives
- Raise the drinker and feeder lines high and out of the way. Most catching injuries and most equipment damage happen against lines nobody lifted.
- Dim the lights, or use blue light. Birds are far calmer and pile far less in low light. This is the single cheapest improvement available.
- Partition the shed into sections with panels so birds cannot run the length of the building and pile in a corner.
- Clear the route for the crates or modules so the team is not carrying birds further than necessary.
- Agree the count method before the first bird is caught, not after.
Handling
Birds should be carried supported, not by one leg, and not by the wings. Crates are loaded to a count, not to whatever fits.
Do not overfill crates. In Pakistani heat an overfilled crate is a smothering risk in the yard before the truck has even moved. Density needs to come down in hot weather, not up.
The truck
- Move at night or in the cool hours. This is not negotiable in summer.
- Do not let a loaded truck stand still. A stationary vehicle has no airflow. Most heat deaths in transport happen while parked — at the farm gate or at the plant.
- Keep the journey short. Long hauls to a distant buyer will eat the price difference that made the distant buyer attractive.
The weighbridge
The weight you are paid on is the weight recorded at the buyer’s scale, and disputes here are common and hard to win after the fact.
- Take your own sample weights before catching
- Record crate counts yourself
- Note the time of last feed, the time of loading, and the time of weighing
If you are selling through an Commission agent · brokerآڑھتیarthiSets the farm-gate price, controls weighing and payment.Glossary →, understand that the scale is usually his. That is part of what you are paying the commission for, and it is also why your own record matters.
Understanding the arthi and the mandi →
Two things to settle before sale day
Withdrawal periods. If the flock has had medication, the clearance date governs the sale date. A rejected load costs more than a delayed one.
The catching team’s terms. Paid by speed, a team will be fast. Paid by speed with a deduction for damage, a team will be fast and careful. The incentive is the whole lever.