Starting Out

10 articles on starting out for Philippine backyard keepers, every peso figure sourced and dated.

The first flock: what it costs to place, how long the money is out of your hands, and which decisions are expensive to reverse later. Written for a backyard, not a commercial house.

A Chicken Coop That Survives a Typhoon

September 29, 2026

Twenty tropical cyclones enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility in an average year and eight or nine of them cross the country, and the enforceable Philippine standard for broiler housing names two structural loads, neither of which is wind. The number that does exist sits in the structural code, one basic wind speed per province, and at four of the ten PAGASA stations checked here the strongest wind already on record is above the speed that province is designed against. What is left for a bakuran is not a stronger building. It is a signal, a lead time, and a decision about where the birds go.

Predators and Theft: Real Backyard Losses
September 25, 2026
Every predator guide a Filipino keeper finds first was written against animals that do not live here. This one works from the aperture a Philippine threat actually passes, the one peer-reviewed record of a named Philippine animal taking chicks, and the peso line in the Local Government Code that decides where a stolen manok gets reported.
LGU Permits, DA Registration and What a Backyard Flock Needs
September 17, 2026
Almost every page answering this question starts at the Department of Agriculture, which is the one layer that does not reach a backyard flock at all. The paperwork that does reach it is local, it is cheap, and it runs on statutory clocks nobody quotes.
How Many Chickens Should You Start With
September 1, 2026
Every page answering this question was written somewhere a barangay clearance does not exist. Here the ceiling is set by an ordinance nobody has collected into a national list, the DA's old registration floor was rescinded in 2023, and the state has no category for a flock smaller than 250 birds.
Point-of-Lay Pullets vs Day-Old: Which Is Cheaper
August 30, 2026
The layer pillar on this site says the pullet premium is a figure you cannot look up, set against ₱270 from 2018 and a rearing cost you have not run yet. This is that rearing cost, run: feed from the Hy-Line rearing table, brooder electricity at the August 2026 Meralco rate, and mortality taken off the top, turned into the pullet quote at which buying and rearing cost the same.
Native Chicken Raising in the Philippines
August 22, 2026
The premium is real, sourced and per kilo. The profit is still not computable: the whole published record of what a Philippine native chicken eats is one 20-bird UPLB trial that ends six weeks before market age. Here is the half that has numbers.
Raising Broilers in the Philippines: One Backyard Batch, Day 1 to Harvest
August 22, 2026
One batch, day 1 to harvest, with a Philippine figure attached wherever one exists and an honest blank where none does. There are more blanks than you would expect.
Raising Layers in a Philippine Backyard
August 22, 2026
Hy-Line and Lohmann were measured separately and land on the same feed-per-egg figure. Put it against the June 2026 farmgate and the margin on an egg is thinner than anybody tells you.
How to Start Raising Chickens in the Philippines: Five Decisions in Order
August 22, 2026
Every beginner's guide opens on how many chickens to get. That question is fifth, and it is derived: three of the four decisions above it are fixed on day 1 and cannot be managed down later, while the head count is only ever the smallest of what your floor holds, what your buyer absorbs, and what your own three quotes will fund.
Startup Cost for 20, 50 and 100 Birds: One Sourced Line and Five Blanks
August 22, 2026
The day-old chick figure is published, wholesale, and not what a dealer will quote you for 20 sisiw. Feed, coop, vaccine and equipment have no Philippine price at all. What is computable is the shape: cost per bird falls hard from 20 to 50 and barely at all from 50 to 100.