Let me speak to you like I speak to many poultry traders during field visits. Most of you know your bird rate, your lifting rate, your market rate, and even your daily volume. But when I ask one simple question — how much profit your vehicle gives — there is usually silence or a rough guess.
Sales may look strong on paper, but at the end of the month the pocket feels lighter. The missing piece is often vehicle profit calculation. Transport runs daily, so it feels routine. Because it feels routine, it is rarely measured. And what is not measured slowly turns into hidden loss.
Transport Runs Daily but Profit Is Never Seen
In poultry trading, vehicles are always moving. Birds are lifted, chicks are delivered, eggs are shifted, supplies are picked up. Fuel is filled without much thought. Driver payment is done regularly. Repairs happen whenever something breaks. All this is treated like normal background activity, not like a profit area.
Since transport supports the business, many traders never separate its cost from trading margin. They look only at buy price and sell price. The journey cost in between is forgotten. Over time, this gap becomes expensive.
Why Most Traders Simply Guess Instead of Calculating
From my experience working closely with farm owners and traders, the reason is not carelessness. It is habit. Transport expense is mixed with many other expenses. One vehicle may be used for different types of trips in the same day. Sometimes it carries birds, sometimes feed, sometimes nothing on the return side.
Because trips are mixed, traders feel calculation is difficult. So they guess. They say fuel is “around this much” and monthly vehicle cost is “somewhere near that.” Guessing feels easier than recording. But guessing never shows truth, and profit hides behind that fog.
How One Vehicle Slowly Eats Your Margin
Let us talk in simple ground reality. Imagine your bird margin per unit looks healthy. You feel the deal is good. But the vehicle used more fuel than expected because of traffic, bad roads, or route deviation. The driver waited long hours at the market. The return trip was empty. A small repair was done on the same day.
Individually these feel small. Together they quietly eat the margin of that load.
When you spread total vehicle expense across the birds actually moved, the real profit per bird often drops more than expected. That is why some traders feel they are working hard, moving volume, but not building surplus.
What Changes When You Start Noting Trip Details
The moment a trader starts writing simple trip details, clarity begins. Just noting where the vehicle went, what it carried, how far it traveled, and how much fuel was filled starts changing thinking. Suddenly, routes are chosen more carefully. Load planning improves. Empty trips are questioned.
You begin to see which routes are costly, which markets cause delays, and which trips give better margin. Decisions become sharper because they are based on facts, not feeling.
Many farmers tell me that once they start writing vehicle movement, drivers also become more disciplined. Waste reduces naturally because visibility increases.
A Simple Shift That Protects Trading Profit
You do not need complex systems to begin. Even a basic daily record habit brings awareness. When awareness comes, control follows. When control comes, margin improves.
Transport should not be treated as just movement. It is part of trading cost and must be respected like feed cost or purchase rate. A vehicle can support your profit strongly, but only when you watch it closely.
If you are serious about improving trading income, do not look only at bird price. Look at the journey cost too. Many times, the real leakage is not in buying or selling — it is on the road between them.
