What emissions does a poultry farmer need to measure?

Emissions from sources owned or controlled by the poultry farm:

Stationary fuel combustion – e.g., propane, natural gas, or diesel used for heating poultry houses, feed mills, or backup generators.
Mobile fuel combustion – fuel used in farm vehicles and machinery (tractors, feed trucks).
On-farm process emissions – methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) from poultry manure management systems (e.g., litter storage, anaerobic lagoons).
Fugitive emissions – refrigerants from cold storage units, if used for meat or egg processing.

Purchased energy-related emissions:

Electricity purchased from the grid for lighting, ventilation fans, climate control, and feed processing.
Purchased steam, heating, or cooling (less common, but possible if sourced externally).

Upstream and downstream activities not directly controlled by the farm:

Purchased feed production – especially soy and corn, which have high embedded emissions from fertilizer use and land-use change.
Breeding stock production – if chicks come from external hatcheries.
Upstream transport – emissions from transporting feed and supplies to the farm.
Processing and cold chain – downstream processing, refrigeration, and packaging of poultry meat/eggs.
Distribution and retail transport – moving products to market.
Waste disposal – litter, carcasses, packaging.
End-of-life impacts – disposal or treatment of products and by-products.
Capital goods – emissions from farm buildings, equipment, and infrastructure manufacture.

Manure management is usually the largest Scope 1 agricultural source for poultry.
Feed production can dominate Scope 3 emissions, often accounting for more than 50% of a poultry farm’s total footprint.
If the farm integrates processing (slaughtering, packaging), those facilities’ emissions need to be included in Scopes 1 and 2.
Methane from enteric fermentation is negligible for poultry compared to ruminants like cattle.

Under the GHG Protocol, a poultry farmer would need to measure emissions across all three scopes, considering both direct on-farm activities and indirect upstream/downstream impacts.