just a curious question my daughters friend asked...
how many chickens per acre?
- Thread starter Gonzo
- Start date
ALOT!! lol
Well at 10 square feet per chicken for run area, that's 4356 chickens per acre.
So yeah, A LOT! LOL!
Yay - I have 3 acres! Time to buy more chickens!
lol I love this question - We have over 4 acres of land to give to only 22 chickens right now, and, well, technically we could add hundreds more to that and still be fine. I would also say "a lot" But since we are cutting down out chickens limits of range (they're laying eggs in every building, every corner, its an easter egg hunt out here. . . ) we're allowing, pretty soon, about 30 chickens to roam on 2 acres of land. But then again, we like our chickens to have plenty of room.
I'm going to go with a billion...give or take.
How many chickens for WHAT per acre?
At battery-farm or broiler-plant stocking densities (ca. 2 sq ft per chicken) it could theoretically be as much as 21,500 chickens (although in reality you'd need some walkways, feeders, waterers, etc which would cut down somewhat on the space available for chickens). YOu could not do this outdoors in the real world, but if you had an acre under a roof you *could* (and broiler farms probably do).
I believe that typical regulations for officially-designated organic/humane raised chickens tend to require rough roughly 10 sq ft per chicken, at which stocking density you could have about 4,300 chickens per acre. You would have zero grass, destroy the soil, and have major nutrient/runoff management problems, of course.
European (dunno bout N. Am.) pastured poultry regulations require like 100ish sq ft per chicken, which would be 400 per acre. Again, not going to have grass growth and it's hard on the soil.
It is generally said that typical land can support like 80-100 chickens per acre without turning it into too horrible a bare-earth mudpit. But there will be little or no net growth of grass and the chickens will not get much dietary benefit from foraging or grazing. However this depends quite a lot on what soil and climate you have. In some places, it will be fewer chickens per acre before you run into major issues.
If you mean "how many chickens can an acre provide nearly-full food supply for in the warm months, and host them without having obvious damage to the vegetation etc", then in most cases it is probably less than a dozen, in many places only a few.
Does that help any?
Pat, who would not be inclined to go more than several dozen per acre, maximum, on this soil anyhow (and it is not that bad soil, and grass grows pretty well all through the summer)
At battery-farm or broiler-plant stocking densities (ca. 2 sq ft per chicken) it could theoretically be as much as 21,500 chickens (although in reality you'd need some walkways, feeders, waterers, etc which would cut down somewhat on the space available for chickens). YOu could not do this outdoors in the real world, but if you had an acre under a roof you *could* (and broiler farms probably do).
I believe that typical regulations for officially-designated organic/humane raised chickens tend to require rough roughly 10 sq ft per chicken, at which stocking density you could have about 4,300 chickens per acre. You would have zero grass, destroy the soil, and have major nutrient/runoff management problems, of course.
European (dunno bout N. Am.) pastured poultry regulations require like 100ish sq ft per chicken, which would be 400 per acre. Again, not going to have grass growth and it's hard on the soil.
It is generally said that typical land can support like 80-100 chickens per acre without turning it into too horrible a bare-earth mudpit. But there will be little or no net growth of grass and the chickens will not get much dietary benefit from foraging or grazing. However this depends quite a lot on what soil and climate you have. In some places, it will be fewer chickens per acre before you run into major issues.
If you mean "how many chickens can an acre provide nearly-full food supply for in the warm months, and host them without having obvious damage to the vegetation etc", then in most cases it is probably less than a dozen, in many places only a few.
Does that help any?
Pat, who would not be inclined to go more than several dozen per acre, maximum, on this soil anyhow (and it is not that bad soil, and grass grows pretty well all through the summer)
Last edited:
- Jan 14, 2008
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Quote:
Please explain how you arrived at the 1-2 per acre figure?????
Please explain how you arrived at the 1-2 per acre figure?????
Forage only with cattle is two acres per cow depending on pasture.
A broiler barn is usually 100 x 400 feet and they house about 40,000 birds in them up to about 8 weeks of age which is processing time.
DEFRA in the UK spec. out 1 sq meter per bird. Which would be roughly 9 sq feet per bird.
A broiler barn is usually 100 x 400 feet and they house about 40,000 birds in them up to about 8 weeks of age which is processing time.
DEFRA in the UK spec. out 1 sq meter per bird. Which would be roughly 9 sq feet per bird.
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