how big should a flock be?

[nellynelly]

if i wanted several hundred birds (on pasture) would it be best to have one flock (coop) or several. how many birds per flock/coop? how far apart should the flocks be kept?

thank you all

 

[sumi]

How much space do you have available? Ideally you should aim for minimum 22sq feet per chicken. More would be better though. You can keep one big flock, though I think smaller flocks of say 100 chickens would be more manageable and it would be easier for you to keep an eye on them and pick out any sick/injured ones. Ideally you shouldn't run a lot of chickens on the same piece of land for too long as it encourages a build-up of parasites. What you can do, provided you have enough space, is to divide your land into separate camps and always leave at least one camp empty, to rest. You then rotate the chickens, 2 weeks in camp A, 2 weeks in camp B. To make this easier you can put their coop in the centre and have a door on each side, letting them into either A or B. (Or C, if you can add another camp, which would be even better)

 

[nellynelly]

thank you.