Broiler House Performance Analysis and Chick Entrance Planning for a Broiler Chicken Integration

Abstract

Increasing rates of chicken meat production has a substantial impact on the Turkish economy. Per capita production in Turkey is close to the average production of the top 20 countries in the world. The production is done by integrated organizations, incorporating an integrator chicken company affiliated with all aspects of the production in an organization. There are many complicated processes, stages and parties involved in a typical integration, bringing with them many interesting problems. In this paper, we focus on tactical and operational decisions required during the broiler growing stage, motivated by the requirements of a moderate-sized integrator in the Marmara Region of Turkey. We use analysis of variance to compare the performances of available broiler houses, and to find the factors effecting the performance measures. Then, we present a mixed-integer linear program which uses the results of our performance analysis to find the least costly set of broiler houses with which the integrator should work, and the chick entrance times into these houses over a planning period.