Design of a Poultry Farm Management System for a Smallholder Farmer in Ogun State

Smallholder poultry farmers in Ogun State lack affordable digital tools to track flock health, feed consumption, egg production, and mortality rates, limiting their ability to optimise farm management decisions. This study describes the design and implementation of a simple web-based poultry farm management system for a smallholder poultry farmer in Ogun State, South West Nigeria. The system was developed using PHP and SQLite, with a mobile-friendly Bootstrap interface. Features include daily egg production logging, feed and medication records, mortality tracking, batch growth monitoring, revenue and expenditure recording, and automated production summary reports. Development used Rapid Application Development over two months with direct involvement of the farm owner in all requirement and feedback cycles. The system was piloted on a farm of 1,500 layers across three production batches over 90 days. Production reporting time decreased from approximately 45 minutes per week (manual register) to under 5 minutes. The farmer identified a previously undetected 8 percent feed wastage pattern from system analytics, leading to a feeder adjustment that improved feed conversion ratio. Post-pilot evaluation by the farmer and two farm assistants rated system usability 4.5 out of 5.0. The study concludes that affordable farm management software significantly improves data-driven decision-making for Nigerian smallholder poultry farmers and recommends development of similar tools for fish farming and crop production contexts.

Keywords: poultry management, farm management system, Ogun State, smallholder farming, agricultural technology