How many chicks are too many?

[sjane74]

Hi everyone!

We are brand-new to raising chickens, and just got our brood of 10 chicks this week. Now I am stressing that we may have gotten too many for our yard. Admittedly, this is mostly brought on by friends and family who keep exclaiming, "10 chickens!?!! They will destroy your yard!!" So now the doubt is brewing in my mind. I originally wanted 6 or 7 chickens and my husband insisted on 10. His rationale: we eat TONS of eggs, and he also feels that there will be a natural attrition of the flock whether it's illness, wandering off, predators, etc. despite our best efforts.

We live in the country on about 3/4 of an acre, backed by acres and acres of woods. My husband is converting our big shed into a coop and building a pen for them, but during the day we were planning to let them forage around the yard.

So my question is, how many are too many? Are 10 chickens on a quarter of an acre going to decimate the yard? Or just be overwhelming for the space in general?

How many chickens do you have and what is the size of your yard?

Pardon my ignorance about this stuff - we have been doing lots of research, but I find it's always best to get answers straight from other chicken people.

Thanks!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I copied this from my response in another thread. That’s why it doesn’t exactly address your question but maybe it can help. The answer is "It depends"

Whether or not you can grow grass in there depends on how many chickens you have, how big it is, your climate, and the time of the year. Someone in the middle of the Arizona desert might get a different response than someone in Seattle or Miami on the same square footage per chicken.

Right now I have mine locked in my 12’ x 32’ run, which will stay barren as long as I have chickens, while I let the 30’ x65’ area inside my electric netting establish grass. If I leave them on that area, they’ll eat anything green that show up. Once it gets well established it can keep up until winter, though I may have to water it a few times in the dry summer.

I have 7 hens and one rooster. They can keep that area picked clean of anything green whole it is sprouting. But this summer when it is established I’ll have over 40 chickens on it and it will stay green. Most of those will be young chicks so it’s not as many as it sounds.

 

[cafarmgirl]

So if I am understanding you correctly, you are wanting to let them mostly roam the yard around the house which is about 1/4 acre? If you are talking about a landscaped yard, yes they are going to cause some destruction. The smaller the area the more they will eat it down. If this is just a large grassy area it won't be too bad. Though they will dig holes for dust bathing and they will eat down any plants that are appealing to them. They are also going to leave fertilizer behind where ever they go so if you like to walk around bare foot or you have kids that play in the yard that might be a consideration as well!

Mine, I have 11 currently, have access to 3/4 acre of pasture where my goats are and the only wear is near the barn where they dust bathe etc. They do visit my front lawn now and then and like to scratch in my flower beds but they never stay long enough to cause any actual damage.

Pretty much you just have to give it a try and see how it goes. If it's too much for the yard and you have more space elsewhere you can always fence in a pasture area just for them. Electric poultry netting works well for that.

 

[sjane74]

Thanks for your replies!

Ridgerunner - Good point about the climate. And that is interesting that that once the grass is well established it holds up pretty well, even with that many chickens. I guess I imagined that they would just destroy lawns down to the dirt.

cafarmgirl - Yes, we were planning to let them have free roam of our 3/4 of an acre, which is grass but not landscaped or fancy, it's kind of hilly with trees around the perimeter.

We do have 3 small children which is a concern (though we don't let them run barefoot because we have dogs, too, lol). I guess we need to think about free range a bit more, maybe a large pen would be better. Time for another discussion with my husband.

I will check out the electric poultry netting, too! We are just going to have to give it a whirl this spring/summer and see how things go. I was just thinking that if I found out, anecdotally, that 10 chickens are usually overkill for the size of our yard, I could give away two of our chicks before they get too big.

 

[cafarmgirl]

Thanks for your replies!

Ridgerunner - Good point about the climate. And that is interesting that that once the grass is well established it holds up pretty well, even with that many chickens. I guess I imagined that they would just destroy lawns down to the dirt.

cafarmgirl - Yes, we were planning to let them have free roam of our 3/4 of an acre, which is grass but not landscaped or fancy, it's kind of hilly with trees around the perimeter.

We do have 3 small children which is a concern (though we don't let them run barefoot because we have dogs, too, lol). I guess we need to think about free range a bit more, maybe a large pen would be better. Time for another discussion with my husband.

I will check out the electric poultry netting, too! We are just going to have to give it a whirl this spring/summer and see how things go. I was just thinking that if I found out, anecdotally, that 10 chickens are usually overkill for the size of our yard, I could give away two of our chicks before they get too big.

You won't see much damage from them at all if they are out on 3/4 acre of grass. But if it's not fenced they may tend to roam farther then you'd like and predation will soon be a problem. With large flocks it's easier to absorb losses but with small flocks it's easy to loose a lot of birds, even your whole flock, in a day or so. Roaming dogs are especially good at taking out small flocks but any predator that finds that food source will keep coming back until it's depleted. I used to completely free range but I had to stop and opt for keeping my birds pastured behind a fence due to coyotes and stray dogs.

 

[sjane74]

Thanks! I think we might give a couple of the chickens to our neighbor, and as far as free range we'll probably let them out for a limited period of time each day instead of full-out free range. There are tons of coyotes and hawks around here and I don't want to risk losing our whole flock to predators.