Taimoor Zayad

Taimoor Zayad is the founder of Flockmath and the person behind its backyard-poultry calculators.

Flockmath’s authority comes from its sources, not from posing as a veterinarian. Every calculator names what its figures rest on — and where no published figure exists, says so rather than implying one.

That discipline has meant going back through the site’s own history: verifying all twenty-three calculators against the extension-service and institutional sources they were originally attributed to, and rebuilding all thirty breed profiles from primary sources — breed clubs, university extension services, and the Livestock Conservancy — rather than repeating secondhand claims. Where a figure turned out to be wrong, including in the unsafe direction, it was corrected and the correction is documented.

The aim is a number that fits your situation, with the reasoning shown so you can check it. When a figure looks wrong to a seasoned keeper, he would rather fix it than defend it — corrections come in through the contact page and are reflected in the “last reviewed” date on each tool.

How these calculators are built

Most Flockmath tools start from published figures — usually cooperative-extension research — and then add the variables those single-number guidelines leave out: breed weight, climate, run access, life stage. Not all of them can. Extension services publish almost nothing on what a coop costs to build or what electricity costs to run, so those tools use market pricing and government data and say so. Where a figure is ours rather than published, the page names it as ours. The goal is a number that fits your situation, with the reasoning shown so you can check it rather than take it on faith.

Where sources disagree, the tools say so and give a range instead of a false-precise single figure. Where a number is a welfare minimum rather than a target, that is stated. Welfare-sensitive figures — space per bird, brooder lamp clearance, roost height — have all now been checked against current guidance, and several were corrected in the process; the editorial standards page explains why that check came after publication rather than before it.

Sources

Which sources apply depends entirely on the tool, so each calculator names its own on the page rather than pointing at a site-wide list. These are the ones actually cited across the twenty-three calculators, and nothing is listed here that is not linked somewhere on the site.

Cooperative extension and university

• Poultry Extension (eXtension) — the most-cited source on the site
• Alabama Cooperative Extension — feed, protein, water intake
• Penn State Extension — space allowances, brooding, roost height, turkey production
• Mississippi State Extension — quail nutrition, space and medications; incubation
• University of Minnesota Extension — heat stress, water, egg handling
• University of Kentucky (ASC-233) — feed and water intake
• University of New Hampshire Extension — turkeys, roost length, brooding
• University of Georgia Extension — bobwhite quail production, water
• University of Maine Extension — manure composting, turkey brooding and feed storage
• University of Maryland Extension — small-flock layer budget, poultry housing
• University of Florida IFAS and University of Arizona Extension — lighting and egg yield
• Cornell University Duck Research Laboratory — duck housing and water
• Virginia Cooperative Extension — small-scale poultry housing
• Oklahoma State Extension, Texas A&M AgriLife, LSU AgCenter, University of Connecticut

Government and standards bodies

• USDA — FSIS (egg safety), ARS (shelf life), ERS (egg prices), NOP (manure intervals)
• US Energy Information Administration — electricity rates
• CDC — Salmonella
• Business Queensland — laying decline with age

Professional and non-profit

• Merck Veterinary Manual — niacin, histomoniasis
• The Livestock Conservancy — heritage breed and turkey laying data
• ATTRA / NCAT — pastured poultry and turkey production
• American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology — egg allergy cross-reactivity
• US Poultry Industry Manual, via The Poultry Site — commercial turkey laying cycle

Hatchery, market and trade sources — labelled as such on the page

These are commercial or trade publications, not research, and the calculators that use them say so rather than presenting them as equivalent to extension guidance: Murray McMurray, Meyer, Cackle and Purina for breed and product figures; Backyard Poultry and Community Chickens for keeper practice; and retail pricing and estimating guides for the build-cost and first-year-cost tools, where no extension source publishes budgets at all.

Corrections

If a figure looks wrong for your setup, the contact page reaches Taimoor directly. Substantive corrections are reflected in the “last reviewed” date on the affected tool. The full sourcing and review process is on the editorial standards page.