How soon will my hens destroy my yard in their chicken tractor?

[Ashlee22]

Hi all! I'm BRAND NEW to raising chickens - in fact they are only 3 weeks old right now. Unfortunately, I also have a somewhat small yard until we move next year (~60 x 35 feet grass area).

So I'd like to set my hens up in a chicken tractor for the time being and move them around the yard. I plan on making it a decent size around 50 square feet - It will be an A-frame design similar to the ones posted in this forum or found on this site: https://www.ana-white.com/woodworking-projects/updated-frame-chicken-coop-plans )

My question is, if I keep 4 Easter Egger hens in this, how often will I need to move it so they don't destroy my yard? And how often will it need to recover before I move it back to the same spot again?

I'd like to keep it somewhat hygienic so that I can enjoy dinner on my patio without staring at a dead yard smelling of chicken poop. lol. What are the odds of this working?

 

[sealer39]

You might have to move it every day. It really depends on your yard and the condition of your grass. You’ll want to move them before they start digging a dust bath otherwise you’ll eventually have a yard full of holes. Also, during wet weather they need to be moved more often. The bigger the run the better but make sure to build it as light possible because you will be moving it often and that gets old quick.

 

[NatJ]

They may be hard on your grass.
When I had 2 full-size hens and 2 bantams in 24 square feet, and moved them around a somewhat sparse lawn on a daily basis, they made noticeable bare spots each day. (I think the bare spots were partly because they ate the dandelion leaves and other not-grass stuff, but the bare spots were definitely there, where it had been green before.)

Is there a spot where you would like a nice mulched bed? Maybe under a tree? You could put a semi-permanent run there, and the hens could spend their days scratching through the mulch. (For this purpose, "mulch" is anything the chickens can scratch through and that will eventually rot--could include wood chips, vegetable peelings, leaves that fall off trees in the autumn, straw, etc.)
Then, when you're ready to move, just rake it smooth and top with a thin layer of mulch that looks nice (wood chips or bark or pine needles or something.)