How to start a broiler farm in Pakistan
What a controlled shed costs to build, what a cycle costs to run, and the numbers to check before committing capital.
Broiler farming in Pakistan is a working business with real margins and real risk. Around 65–75% of national broiler production comes from independent farms rather than integrators, so there is room to enter — but the economics are unforgiving, because two of your three main costs are set by somebody else.
This guide covers what it takes to start, and more usefully, the arithmetic that tells you whether to.
The two models
Independent. You buy chicks, buy feed, carry the price risk and sell into the mandi. Higher ceiling, and you can lose money on a cycle.
Contract farmingThe integrator supplies chicks and feed and pays a growing fee, taking the price and feed risk. Lower ceiling than independent farming, far lower variance.Glossary →. An IntegratorA company that owns the parent stock, hatchery, feed mill and often the processing plant, and contracts out the growing. Around 10–15% of Pakistani broiler production.Glossary → supplies chicks and feed and pays you a growing fee per bird or per kilo. Your feed and price risk becomes theirs. Lower ceiling, far lower variance, and a sensible way to learn the operation before taking the risk yourself.
A first-time farmer with no production experience should think hard before choosing the first option purely because the upside looks better.
Shed and site
Almost all commercial broiler production now happens in environmentally controlled sheds — roughly 6,500 of them nationally — typically holding 30,000–40,000 birds. A controlled shed gives you consistent performance, higher stocking density and far better summer survival. It also costs considerably more to build and depends on reliable power.
Site matters more than most first-time farmers expect:
- Distance from other poultry farms. Disease pressure is a function of density. A site surrounded by farms will break more often, whatever you do.
- Road access in the wet. Feed trucks and bird-collection vehicles must reach you year-round.
- Power. Controlled sheds need ventilation continuously. Load shedding without backup will kill a flock in hours during summer.
- Water. Test it before you build. High TDS or bacterial contamination suppresses intake and undermines everything downstream.
What a cycle looks like
A broiler Cycle · batchبیچbatchOne placement to sale, 35–45 days.Glossary → runs 35–45 days from PlacementPutting day-old chicks into a shed. Today’s placements are next month’s supply — a broiler cycle has a fixed length, so this is the most forward-looking number in the sector.Glossary → to sale, plus a week or more of downtime for clean-out between flocks. Six cycles a year is realistic.
A flock of 20,000 chicks at 2.0 kg and 4.2% mortality produces around 38,000 kg of live weight. At current farm-gate rates that is a turnover in the region of PKR 11–12 million per cycle, against a cost base of roughly PKR 10–11 million.
The margin is thin, and it swings. This is the central fact of the business.
Where the money goes
| Cost | Share | | --- | --- | | Feed | 60–75% | | Day-old chicks | 10–15% | | Energy — electricity and fuel | 5–8% | | Veterinary and biosecurity | 3–5% | | Labour and depreciation | 2–5% |
Feed dominates everything. It follows that a farm’s profitability is decided mostly by FCR — how efficiently it converts that feed — and by the two input prices it does not control.
The number to check before you start
Not the chicken rate. Your Break-evenThe sale rate per kilo below which the cycle loses money. Equal to your total cost divided by total live weight — most farms only find it out after selling.Glossary → — the rate per kilo below which the cycle loses money, given what you pay for chicks and feed.
Most farms only find this out after the birds are sold, by which point the decision has already been made. Work it out first, then compare it against what the market has actually been paying over the last month rather than today’s print.
If your break-even sits close to the middle of the recent trading range, the business is a coin flip on market timing. That is not a plan.
What new farms get wrong
Underestimating working capital. You pay for chicks and feed weeks before you get paid for birds. Running out of cash mid-cycle forces distress selling at whatever the buyer offers.
Ignoring “other costs”. Medicine, vaccination, brooding fuel, electricity, labour and litter typically run PKR 18–28 per bird. Left out of the sums, they understate break-even by around ten rupees a kilo — often the entire margin.
Buying the cheapest chick. Chick quality shows up in day-7 weight and in mortality. A cheap chick from a poorly-managed parent flock is the most expensive input on the farm.
Treating BiosecurityThe measures that stop disease reaching the farm — vehicle control, dedicated boots per shed, all-in all-out, proper clean-down. Cheap, and it prevents the losses that end farms.Glossary → as optional. It costs almost nothing and prevents the losses that end farms. Newcastle is endemic; H9N2 spikes twice a year.
No records. Without mortality, feed and weight recorded daily, you cannot calculate FCR, cannot see a problem developing, and cannot be underwritten by anyone. It is the cheapest discipline in the business and the most commonly skipped.