termining which growers to retain on an annual basis and which to use 

 only during the peak of the placement cycle, as well as which growers 

 should he permanently dropped. These decisions were based on evalu- 

 ation of several factors. One, integrators generally had an elaborate ac- 

 counting system which included the unit costs for each flock produced. 

 Two, almost every integrator had some method of measuring produc- 

 tion efficiency, such as feed efficiency or mortality rate. These factors 

 gave considerable information to the integrator about the grower's man- 

 agerial ability and technology of his production unit. Three, integrators 

 knew which growers had been willing to accept their management de- 

 cisions and those who had not. 



It was possible to project the linear relationships on changes in weight 

 gains per day and the number of days required to raise broilers to mark- 

 et weight over time as shown earlier, and thus estimate the number of 

 days required to produce broilers to an average weight of 3.5 pounds in 

 future years. Although the derived relationship is linear, the estimates 

 are not continued beyond 1964 in Table 2 because the number of days to 

 produce broilers to 3.5 pounds may be considerably more or less than 

 the projected relationship, depending on developments in technology and 

 management. 



Table 2 gives some estimates of the number of flocks of 3.5 pound 

 broilers a grower could produce each year. According to these estimates, 

 the number of days required to produce a flock of broilers to this weight 

 will decline 24 days between 1957 and 1964. With 7-day clean-out periods 

 between flocks and a 2-week period each year for making major repairs 

 and for vacation, a grower could produce 6.35 flocks per year in 1964. 

 By taking less time for cleaning out. and no vacation time, he could pro- 

 duce 7 flocks in 1964. In the 8-year period, it is estimated that occupancy 

 time would decline from 45.7 weeks to 43.8. a period of 2 weeks. 



Table 2. Estimated Number of Days Required to Produce a Flock of 3.5 Pound 

 Broilers and Number of Flocks that could be Produced per Year. 



tear 



1957 

 1958 

 1959 

 1960 

 1961 

 1962 

 1963 

 1964 



*Data extrapolated from linear relationships in Figure 4 and 5. Method used: derive 

 number of days to produce flock at middle of each year; derive average weight per 

 broiler at middle of year; determine difference in average weight from 3.5 pounds; 

 divide the difference in weight by the average daily rate of growth for the middle 

 of that year and add or subtract this from the number of days to produce flock. 

 This is an estimate of the number of days to produce a flock of 3.5 pounds live 

 weight. 



tNumber of flocks per year found by adding 7 days to column 2 to allow clean-out 

 period and dividing this into 351 days. Use 351 days to allow 14 days for vacation or 

 making major repairs on facilities. 



17 



