Count chickens in a flock from a photo

Counting chickens in a shed, a paddock or at placement

Poultry growers count at placement, through the growing cycle and when reconciling mortality, while smallholders and backyard keepers mainly want to know that every bird came in at dusk. A full broiler house holds far more birds than one photo can resolve, so count it a section at a time and treat the sum of the sections as a draft, not a census.

White birds on pale wood shavings blend in, and birds bunched under feeder lines or along the walls overlap heavily. Shoot from as high as you safely can, such as a step ladder at the house door, and keep each frame to the strip between two feeder lines. Moderate bunching can be estimated, but birds piled on top of each other are likely to be undercounted. Day-old chicks are easier: photograph each chick box from directly above before tipping it out and add every box as a row.

For a free-range flock, the pop hole at dusk or the ground around a feeder gives the best grouping. Drinkers and feeders lit from above can pick up stray dots, so check them and correct the tally; placement and mortality records still need your own physical checks. Ducks bring different problems on water, covered in the duck counting guide, and the daily egg collection can be counted with the egg counter.