Raising layers

A layer flock is saved as a Lot in PoultryDesk. It is a group of pullets or hens placed into one or more houses and tracked from placement through peak production to depopulation. You can always see hen-day production, mortality, feed per egg, and the daily egg count.

Before you start

Make sure your site and houses exist, and that you have birds to place - either purchased point-of-lay pullets or birds transferred from a rearing lot.

Place the lot

Open Layers, choose New placement, then:

1. Pick the site and house or houses.
2. Enter the bird count, the breed or strain, the age at placement, and the placement date. Pullets are usually placed at point of lay (around 16-18 weeks / 112-126 days), so set the age at placement in days. PoultryDesk uses it to work out the hatch date so the flock age and the feeding schedule reflect the true bird age. Leave it blank only if the birds really are day-old.
3. 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.
4. Submit.

This opens a new layer flock, labelled as a Lot in the app.

Daily flock records

Open the flock and record the day's work.

• Egg collection - choose Record eggs and enter the day's authoritative total for the flock. PoultryDesk distinguishes a recorded zero from a day that has not been recorded; correct the saved daily record instead of adding a duplicate.
• Mortality - choose Record mortality, enter the count and an optional cause.
• 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 draws the feed down from your inventory.
• 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 original entry remains in the audit history.
• Not fed - on a missing Feed day, choose Not fed and explain why the flock was not fed. PoultryDesk treats that reasoned zero differently from a day with no decision.

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

Backfill missed Feed days

Open the Feed round and expand Generate missing records. Pick Feed, choose a range of at most 31 days, and select Preview records. 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.

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.

• Treatments - record medications under the Health module. Some treatments start an egg withdrawal that affects collection and keeps those eggs out of saleable stock.

Review the flock Overview

The Lot Overview puts today's work first. It offers Record eggs only while the lot is open, birds remain, and the flock's age or production history indicates that laying has started. A pre-lay flock shows a calm lifecycle status instead of a missed-collection warning. When production is active, the Overview tells you whether eggs were recorded and warns when an egg withdrawal is active without blocking production capture. The operational snapshot shows birds alive, eggs today, today's hen-day rate, and cumulative mortality. The flock balance explains how many birds remain using labelled facts rather than an accounting formula.

The Hen-day production trend previews the previous 30 completed days as percentages, so production remains comparable as flock size changes. A missing capture appears as a gap, a recorded zero appears as 0%, and the summary states how many of the 30 days were recorded. Choose View production for the cumulative totals and record timeline.

Grading

Grading is a site-level inventory job because eggs from the site's layer flocks are normally mixed before sorting. Open Inventory > Stock > On hand, open the site's Eggs row, and choose Grade eggs. Split the available ungraded pool into small, medium, large, cracked, and dirty quantities. You can also identify the production system when a site keeps organic, free-range, barn, deep-litter, or cage eggs separately.

The grading total cannot exceed the site's ungraded eggs on hand. PoultryDesk consumes that ungraded stock and adds the graded eggs to the site's saleable inventory. Per-flock production reporting still comes from collection; PoultryDesk does not invent a flock origin after eggs have been mixed.

Correct a placement

Before closeout, a manager can correct the placement facts - bird count, site or house, placement date - by editing the placement. PoultryDesk records the correction rather than overwriting the original, so the history stays intact. A correction is blocked once the lot is closed, or if the corrected count would fall below the birds already removed by mortality or depopulation.

Depopulate the flock

When you sell off or otherwise remove the flock at the end of its life, open the lot and choose Depopulate. Split the live birds into sold (live), culled, and died, and let PoultryDesk reconcile any remaining difference between the birds on record and the birds you physically accounted for into an unaccounted figure. This is the honest way to close a sold flock: the birds you sold are recorded as sold, not as deaths, so your mortality figures stay accurate. If you track inventory, the birds you sold live are added as spent-hen stock so the sale draws them down and stays traceable to the flock. A running tally shows the original count, how many you have depopulated so far, and how many remain. Once every bird is accounted for and none remain, the lot closes automatically when you submit.

Record the sale at the same time

When you enter a sold count, PoultryDesk offers Record the sale now. Tick it to add the customer, unit price, currency, and payment method, and PoultryDesk books the sale against this lot in the same step - so revenue, the customer balance, the lot's profit, and cost of goods all update without a separate trip to Finance > Sales. Leave it off to record only the disposition (the birds become spent-hen stock you can sell later). If the sale is rejected - for example you lack sales permission, or the flock is under a meat withdrawal - the depopulation is still saved and a message tells you; fix the details and retry, or record the sale in Finance > Sales. Retrying never records the depopulation twice.

Depopulate only part of the flock

You do not have to remove the whole flock at once - partial is the default. Enter just the birds removed in this batch (sold, culled, or died) and PoultryDesk:

• drops the live-bird count by exactly what you entered and leaves the rest on the lot;
• keeps the lot open - it only closes automatically once no live birds remain;
• leaves your mortality figures untouched, and adds spent-hen stock only for the birds sold in this batch.

Only tick Reconcile remaining birds as unaccounted (full depopulation) when you are removing the whole flock but cannot account for every bird individually - it writes off the remaining birds as unaccounted and closes the lot.

Record another depopulation whenever you sell the next batch, and close the lot on the final one once the live count reaches zero. In between, the lot keeps running normally - egg collection, mortality, and feed all continue for the remaining birds.

Close out the lot

When the flock is depopulated or transferred out, choose Close out lot. You can add an optional reason. Closeout is blocked while the lot still has live birds - depopulate or record the residual mortality first.

What you get

• A flock dashboard showing today's operating state, hens alive, a 30-day hen-day production trend, daily egg count, cumulative mortality percentage, flock balance, and real exceptions that need action.
• A site eggs view showing ungraded, graded, and withheld quantities plus recent grading movements.
• A withdrawal calendar showing which lots have eggs or meat held back and until when.
• Feed and medication usage by flock in the inventory ledger, and a full flock timeline in the audit trail.
• A daily Feed table that distinguishes actual, estimated, not-fed, and missing days and shows the cost-recognition source without exposing supplier or amount details.

See also

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