How many chickens can I sustain on my land?

[gurl8203]

I am new to chickens. I am trying to figure out how many chickens I can successfully raise on my land. I live on about ½ an acre and my backyard is probably at least ¼ of an acre, if not more, of grass/clover and other ground cover. I live in West TN so my “pasture” grows pretty quickly. I'm expecting my first batch of 6 chicks next week, which will become layers. I will be keeping them in a tractor style coop and also allow them to free range when I can supervise them. I would eventually like to do some small batches of meat chickens as well, but I'm unsure how many chickens my pasture can sustain. I'm not interested in doing Cornish Xs, I would like to do some kind of rangable heritage breed. Anyone have any insight?

 

[OurFarm]

When I saw this heading, I got excited. Then, I saw that you had zero replies.

I was hoping to get some insight on the capacity of my own farm. The research I've found says that some professional poultry folks think you can carry 400 chix, or 100 turkeys per acre. I have ~200 birds on our 50 acres. The first year I had chix, the farm was tick CENTRAL! I couldn't walk out the door w/out being covered in ticks (did you guess I'm in the Ozarks?) When I walked in the pasture, there would be a wave of grasshoppers that would go in front of me. The 2nd year, there weren't many of either. This year we don't expect any of either. That being the case, I don't see how we could have more than we have already. I do know that the people who are saying that you can carry so many are supplementing the feed of their chix. We don't. They all find their own grub.

 

[scubaforlife]

A few questions come up.

Are you wanting the chickens to free range, or are you going to be doing mobile pens?

You need to have areas that can have 2 21 day host free periods per year in order to break the pathogen cycle, that is easier to do with pens.

I would say that you would probably want smaller pens given your lot size. I think you could get away with 2 8x10s carrying 60 birds each. The key would be starting them 21 days apart and moving on a similar pattern through the yard. This would yield 60 birds every 5 weeks and then a rest for your pasture.

These numbers are just outta my head with me imagining the dimensions of your 1/4 acre and keeping in mind the pens will be out on pasture for 5 weeks or moving 35 times.

If this is your first time, I would start with one pen and 50 birds and see how you like it.

 

[gurl8203]

Thanks for the info! I am wanting to do mobile pens. That is WAY more birds than I would have expected. I was worried that just one batch of 25 would be too many!

 

[scubaforlife]

25 in a 4 x 8 mobile pen would be easy to do. You will be turning a bit so that makes it harder to manage but if the pen is small and you have few birds, you should be fine.

You could probably do batches of 25 over and over until really hot weather, then again in the fall until really cold weather.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
Really? 25 meat birds in 32 square feet sounds a bit tight to me. I'm sure it is doable -- the commercial growers must have them in even tighter quarters. But, set aside some of that for feed and water and consider the potential difficulties of moving the tractor and keeping everyone inside and I think I'd want either a bigger tractor or fewer birds.

 

[scubaforlife]

That works out to 1.28sqft per bird. Joel Salatin runs 1.3sqft per bird in a 10x12 with 96 birds. The standard pastured setup is 1.3 - 1.5 so 1.28 isn't too cramped until the end.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I don't know why Cornish Xs get such a bad rap. Mine free ranged just as well as my layers!

 

[FluffyColor]

hmmm... a lot!