Designing permanent 3 season poultry paddocks

[Redhead Rae]

I have a piece of land that I am currently rotating my birds on inside of movable electric poultry net.

I love the stuff, but it is a royal PAIN to move when the grass grows quickly and it is too much for one person to do. It usually takes 3 people to do properly. So, I want to set up a permanent fence with 4 separate paddocks and rotate them to a new paddock every week.

I plan on using the paddocks for 50-80 birds, depending on the season.

The piece of land that I can use is about 1/4 of an acre. It was a hay field, but we got maybe $100 in hay off the field a year, so it would be more cost effective to use it for our chickens. The blue area is the area that can be used for the paddocks. The red area can be used for now with the temporary netting, but is reserved for a future structure (barn/hay storage, etc).

The tail end of the usable area is marshy, so I'm inclined not to use it.

There is an all season stream that runs along the left side of the paddock, and I'm wondering if there is a good way to include that in the paddocks so the chickens have constant access to water, or if that would just be asking for trouble. If not, I'm considering possibly doing a gravity siphon further upstream to bring clean water down constantly.

I want the fencing to be maybe 4' to 6" tall woven wire with a tighter mesh on the bottom two feet to keep the chicks in.

I know I have lots to think about. I want to get this project finished before next spring.

 

[Molpet]

Predators follow the creek at my house
Not much cover right now on that eyebrow shape parcel
One way would be to perimeter fence for now and use the net to see if 3 long sections work or if cut in quarters would work better

 

[Redhead Rae]

I provide lots of cover and secure night-time coops for the birds. I am considering doing ft knox for ground predators on the perimeter (ground skirting, 6ft high, several electric strands running on the exterior of the fence) and doing 3 dividing fences to split it into 4 parcels. But in order to do the dividing fences, I want wooden posts in a T formation at the end if each divider so they can take tension. Would like to have two exterior gates, one at the top of the field and one at the bottom (with concrete thresholds), and 3 interior gates to move the birds between. I think I'll just have a lifting skirt for those gates. I'm not sure if we'll want man gates on the interior since all the previous gates mentioned will need to be large enough to roll mobile coops through.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I'm also thinking about installing cattle panel trellises horizontally along the entire fence line front and back so we can grow shade plants on them and provide cover. Although that could interfere with the exterior electric wires.

 

[Molpet]

sounds like it is well thought out

 

[aart]

Is that a public road..and your driveway at the bottom?
Is the proposed paddock area about maybe 40-50 wide?
Will there be a coop in each section of paddock...or maybe 1 coop to serve 2 paddocks?

 

[Redhead Rae]

I guess it is techinically a public road. There are two houses down the lane past me. But it dead ends after that. Yes, that is my driveway and my house at the bottom of the picture.

The paddocks will probably be between 30-40 ft wide and 60-70 ft long.

We use mobile coops. We are planning on building a winter coop off of our garden and using that as our winter quarters.

 

[aart]

We use mobile coops.

For that many birds?

50-80 birds

Must be big ones on running gear or trailer beds?