5 min read · Updated 10 July 2026
Hen-day production (HDP) — how well your layers are laying
Hen-day production is simply the percentage of your live hens that laid an egg on a given day.
The formula
HDP % = (eggs collected today ÷ number of live hens) × 100. If 100 hens give you 88 eggs, that is 88% hen-day production.
A healthy Lohmann Brown or Hy-Line flock peaks around 90–95% and stays high for months before slowly tapering. If your HDP drops more than about 5% week-on-week without an obvious reason, something is wrong — water, disease, stress or feed.
Feed conversion ratio (FCR) — how efficiently you turn feed into product
FCR is the amount of feed used to produce one unit of output. Lower is better — it means less feed per egg or per kilogram of meat.
- Layers: feed eaten ÷ egg mass produced. A Lohmann Brown benchmark is around 2.0–2.2 kg feed per kg of egg.
- Broilers: feed eaten ÷ live weight gained. A Ross 308 benchmark is about 1.75 at day 42 — every 0.1 above that is money lost.
Why it matters more than anything else
Feed is the single biggest cost in poultry. A small, steady improvement in FCR beats almost any other change you can make. You cannot improve what you do not measure — record feed and output every day.
See your FCR and cost per dozen automatically
FarmBind works out HDP, FCR, mortality and cost per dozen from five fields a day — and benchmarks them against the breed standard for you.
Try FarmBind freeCommon questions
- What is a good FCR for broilers in South Africa?
- The Ross 308 breed standard is roughly 1.75 kg of feed per kg of live weight at day 42. Well-run commercial farms get close to this; beginners often sit at 2.0 or higher. Closing that gap is usually the single biggest profit lever on a broiler farm.
- How do I calculate hen-day production?
- Divide the eggs you collected by the number of live hens and multiply by 100. For example, 176 eggs from 200 hens is 88% hen-day production. Track it daily and watch the trend, not a single day.