Livestock Trader Guide: Cost per Head and Profit per Batch

This guide is for livestock traders who buy batches of lambs, kids or adult sheep, fatten them for 60 to 120 days and sell to markets, butchers, restaurants or for Eid al-Adha. In Throf each batch becomes its own group, so you always know what every head has cost so far, how fast it is gaining, your break-even price and the real profit of the batch.

A trader earns on the gap between the sale price and everything spent on the animal since purchase. Many know their sales figure well but only discover what feed, treatment and labour ate into it after the batch is gone. This roadmap gives you one method to repeat with every batch.

The livestock trader at a glance

The plan follows how many animals are on the farm at once, not how many you buy in a year. We recommend Gold for most traders: it includes the feed-conversion dashboard, advanced reports and two employee accounts. See the plans page.

What you need to track

• Cost per head to date: purchase price plus its share of feed, treatment, labour and transport.
• Average daily gain: is the batch gaining enough to pay for today's feed?
• Ready to sell: the heads that have reached the weight and condition your buyers want.
• Break-even price: the lowest price per head at which you do not lose money.
• Net profit per batch: sales minus all expenses, including the cost of animals that died.
• Cost of one extra day: what every additional day in the pen costs you.

Step-by-step roadmap

Before buying

1. Create a group for the batch with a clear name showing source and date (for example: Najdi lambs, March batch). Everything about this batch will be recorded against it.
2. Set a rough break-even before you pay: expected purchase price + estimated daily feed × days + treatment and transport. If the expected market price leaves no clear margin, renegotiate before buying, not after.

Day of arrival

1. Register every head with its number and tag colour, sex, breed and starting weight, and enter the purchase price in its file; that is where its cost begins. For large batches use the Excel import. If the animals carry RFID tags, the Bluetooth reader opens each animal's file directly.
2. Move the whole batch to the fattening stage in one action by changing the stage of the group.
3. Isolate new arrivals: set the isolation status for animals under observation and record the first inspection and any treatment or vaccination as advised by your vet and the local schedule.
4. Record the buying costs: transport, broker fees and other charges, assigned to the batch group, not to the farm as a whole.

During fattening (weekly)

1. Record feed: meals are deducted from the feed stock, and every feed purchase, worker wage or vet bill is entered as an expense on the group. General costs such as electricity or rent stay on the farm.
2. Weigh a sample or the whole batch about every two weeks. The feed-conversion dashboard shows average daily gain and the animals whose weight changed most, so you spot slow gainers early and check them.
3. Keep health records up to date: every treatment, illness or death is recorded straight away with reminders, so head count and cost stay correct.

Selling

1. Pick the ready animals from the weight and body condition report, and check the drug withdrawal period report so you never sell an animal still inside the withdrawal period set by your vet.
2. Compare each offer with your break-even, and send the buyer the buyer-version PDF of the animal when useful.
3. Record the sale per animal at its real price. It leaves the live herd and moves into the batch accounts.

After the batch closes (review)

1. Open the finance dashboard and the sales report: total sales, total expenses and net profit. Then compare this batch with the previous one on daily gain, cost per head and days held.

Worked example: a batch of 200 head

The figures below are an illustrative example with round numbers, not market prices. Replace them with your own.

Two animals died, so 198 were sold at SAR 1,300 each = SAR 257,400. Net profit for the batch = 257,400 − 222,000 = SAR 35,400, or about SAR 179 per head sold. The real break-even is not SAR 1,110 but about SAR 1,121 (222,000 ÷ 198), because the survivors carry the cost of the two that died.

In this example one extra day costs about SAR 5.3 per head (feed plus share of labour), close to SAR 1,070 a day for the batch. Holding two more weeks for a better price means you need about SAR 75 more per head just to stand still. When daily gain slows down, every extra day eats your margin. To read the market before selling, see how to price livestock for sale.

A fixed routine

The daily operations log shows every action with its time and the name of who recorded it, so you know who weighed and fed while you are at the market.

Common mistakes for this type of farm

• Judging profit by sales alone. Fix: record every expense on the batch group and read net profit on the finance dashboard, not total sales.
• Mixing batches in one pen and one notebook. Fix: one group per batch, even if the pens are side by side.
• Skipping the starting weight. Fix: weigh on arrival day; without it there is no daily gain and no feed conversion.
• Putting new arrivals straight in with existing stock. Fix: isolate, observe and inspect before mixing, and log it in the health record.
• Waiting "in case the price goes up". Fix: compare the cost of an extra day with the actual daily gain before you delay a sale. For seasonal peaks, plan early as in our Eid al-Adha preparation guide.

When to move to the next stage

You may need a bigger setup when:

• The number of head on the farm at the same time nears your plan limit or goes above 840, which calls for a custom offer from the Throf team on WhatsApp or +966 920033734.
• You start keeping females for breeding instead of selling everything, so mating seasons and births come in.
• Your team grows and you need finer permissions and reports per pen.

At that point move on to the 1000-head farm guide, or open the full use-case guide to choose the setup that fits. To fine-tune the ration itself, read the 90-day lamb fattening plan.