Advise Please

[LorenaAZ]

I'm not sure where to post this as it is a 2 question post.

Question 1: How many laying hens can free range comfortably in 1 acre? What I mean is, how many laying hens can be kept outside in 1 acre without them killing all the plants/damaging the soil.

Question 2: In 1 acre, in order to avoid bare soil, can we have 1 large coop where the free ranging hens come in exclusively at night and during inclement weather? Or would it be absolutely necessary to have a tractor/movable coop?
If the answer is to have a tractor/movable coop...what designs are out there that would be able to withstand alpine winters?

We are brainstorming and would really hate to spend time & money on something that won't work well. So we figured we'd come and ask here for opinions and experiences.

 

[nzpouter]

how many do you want...?

We have 4 big runs in our home orchard, each about 1/4 acre, 2 have about 50 bantams in each, the other about 30 orpingtons in each, during summer if we don't irrigate, it'll look like this,

in spring, it'll look like this,