I've been examining my meat bird raising setup and considering what to do in the future when I expand. Right now I'm working out of the yard next to my barn, but I'd like to move my meat birds onto pasture for the health of the birds and for the health of the yard.
The problem is that my "pasture" is a couple acres of sloped, uneven patchy mixed grass and oak woodland with big rocks in it. I could probably find a few places to put an 8x8 or 10x10 tractor in it, but I certainly can't drag it from spot to spot every day or so the way you can in a flat pasture. And I can't just cut down the trees and move the rocks and plow it flat. This is the way it is.
I've been reading about the french label rouge system, and they pasture their chickens entirely free range in big yards in open pine forests. I've also read Andy Lee's Day Range Poultry, where he proposes a system of a night coop plus a range yard with electric poultry netting. (a system that lots of people including Joel Salatin commonly use for laying hens). I've had good luck with electronet in my current yard, and I know how to use it, so I like this idea.
I'm thinking that a day range system would work well for me for meat birds -- to fence off a small area with electronet for the birds and give them a night coop for protection against predators. Once the birds are processed I'd pick up and move the electronet and the coop to another area and let the first area rest. Since I only do 2-3 batches of birds a year, this would not put too much of a strain on the land.
Has anyone here use a system like this or is using it now? Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? I'm concerned that the birds will cluster too tightly around the coop, rather than ranging over the entire area, although I do plan mostly to raise ether freedom rangers or DP chickens, not cornish cross, so that may not be an issue.
If you've tried this I'd love to hear from you.
The problem is that my "pasture" is a couple acres of sloped, uneven patchy mixed grass and oak woodland with big rocks in it. I could probably find a few places to put an 8x8 or 10x10 tractor in it, but I certainly can't drag it from spot to spot every day or so the way you can in a flat pasture. And I can't just cut down the trees and move the rocks and plow it flat. This is the way it is.
I've been reading about the french label rouge system, and they pasture their chickens entirely free range in big yards in open pine forests. I've also read Andy Lee's Day Range Poultry, where he proposes a system of a night coop plus a range yard with electric poultry netting. (a system that lots of people including Joel Salatin commonly use for laying hens). I've had good luck with electronet in my current yard, and I know how to use it, so I like this idea.
I'm thinking that a day range system would work well for me for meat birds -- to fence off a small area with electronet for the birds and give them a night coop for protection against predators. Once the birds are processed I'd pick up and move the electronet and the coop to another area and let the first area rest. Since I only do 2-3 batches of birds a year, this would not put too much of a strain on the land.
Has anyone here use a system like this or is using it now? Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? I'm concerned that the birds will cluster too tightly around the coop, rather than ranging over the entire area, although I do plan mostly to raise ether freedom rangers or DP chickens, not cornish cross, so that may not be an issue.
If you've tried this I'd love to hear from you.
