Do the meat birds in portable pens ruin your yard?

[redwing76]

So I'm thinking about getting meat birds. I haven't decided yet which I'm going to get...cornish crosses or black rangers, but what I'm concerned about is my yard. We currently have 12 layers that have a designated coop and large run. We let them out periodically and they are fine but they are not in a concentrated area with nothing to do but tear up the grass. We live in a somewhat residential area but the lots in our neighborhood are all over an acre. We have 1.5 acres. I'm concerned about what our yard would look like after 9-13 weeks of moving chickens around on it. I would like to let them range a bit during the day when my kids and I are home, but if they were left in the portable tractor how destructive would they be? I don't want my back yard all tore up at the end of this endeavor. Any thoughts?

 

[Coralietg]

We've been moving a tractor around for 6 weeks now. It doesn't look bad at all and hasn't destroyed the grass. I can take a picture tomorrow if you would like to see. We move it every 2-3 days, and we had 16 Cornish in a 6 x 12 run area.

 

[Coralietg]

Most recent spots, we came along the back then turned.



You can kind of see the line we followed. Grass it doing well, just some sparse patches. We moved every 2-3 days though.

 

[4Bchicks]

The grass will look ruff...I used lime (pelletized) and reseeded as needed.

 

[thriftyfarmer]

The more you move them the better. I like to move mine every day.

 

[redwing76]

Sorry for the delay in thanks, but thank you for the info and the pics. Very helpful and reassuring!

 

[daneblackburn]

You can use a garden rake to break up while the manure is still soft. If you think it is getting to thick move more often.