Permanent Pasture/Chicken Run Sizing (Want to keep it green)

Welllaidacres

Songster
Jan 2, 2020
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Eastern Illinois
My Coop
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I am luckily enough to have access to a free bag of alfalfa, red clover, alsike clover, timothy grass, and orchard grass mix. A friend of mine does custom seed blending and this batch was an oops for a farmer (Grass seed wasn't supposed to be there, but hired man messed up blending). Bad day for him good day for me. The bag will seed an acre he tells me.

I know the bare minimum for run space is 10 sq ft/bird. I currently have 900 sq ft run that my 30 laying chickens utilize. It is subdivided into 3 separate but equal sized paddocks so that they can eat on an area and then i move them to the next to allow the freshly grazed patch to regrow and rest before more grazing/scratching/etc. With the barn and existing runs location, I could easily expand this area and plan to do so this fall/winter. This next question is for those of you that do not free range, but "pasture" your birds or anyone who can provide some information. How much sq ft should I figure per bird if I want a permanent pasture set up that does not turn to mud/bare dirt. My 3 paddocks at 300 sq ft. are on the smaller side as it is, so I know 10 sq ft/bird is too low. This was set up with the intent of a dozen birds, but chicken math happened. For fencing I use 2x4 welded wire and stretch poultry netting over the top. Not completely predator proof, but meets my security vs. risk vs. cost mindset currently. Thanks for any info you can provide.
 
I've read something like 250 sq ft per chicken if you want the grass to stay mostly grass, but it probably depends a lot on climate, soil, and the exact type of plants/grasses you have.
thanks for the reply! Do you know where you saw that number?

I found today that certified humane requires 108 sq ft per bird for their pasture raised label. I wasn’t able to tell if that involved rotation on contiuoisbgrazing. Looks like I’ll have to keep digging.
 
I found today that certified humane requires 108 sq ft per bird for their pasture raised label. I wasn’t able to tell if that involved rotation on contiuoisbgrazing.
That's mostly marketing fluff.

You'll not likely find a hard number, as said before much will depend on your specific land/climate and the plants that are there.

The typical run space(10sqft/bird) guideline has to do with crowding behavior rather than vegetation survival.
 
That's mostly marketing fluff.

You'll not likely find a hard number, as said before much will depend on your specific land/climate and the plants that are there.

The typical run space(10sqft/bird) guideline has to do with crowding behavior rather than vegetation survival.
Fully understand the 10’ is for behavioral reasons. As stated chicken math happened and that’s how I got down to 10’. Won’t be going any lower. I understand it’s marketing buzz words, but have you looked into certified humanes requirements for their labels (not usda label requirements)? There is more there than just fluff.

With the rotation of paddocks I was able to keep things green up through august until it turned hot and dry here. In hindsight, I wish I had 4 paddocks and would have sacrificed one to turn bare while the other 3 rested through that time. Long term I think manure nutrient buildup would make it hard to keep growing in those small paddocks.

Just thought I’d reach out and see if any one uses a similar setup or has tried something to this effect.
 
I fully recognize this is just one data point, and that scaling it up is probably not linear math, but it might still be helpful.
I currently have only 4 chickens. Their Chicken Palace provides just over 400 sq feet of predator-secure space. Most of that has a solid roof but a small amount is alternating 'pasture' that they destroy very fast.
In addition, this summer I fenced off about 650 sq feet of pasture. They were not out in it all day every day as it is not predator secure. I would guesstimate they got out in it most days for many hours because we had work going on outdoors and I relied on the presence of people to keep the predators away. But then there were rain days and days when they only got a few hours roaming.
Anyway, with that load they are not even keeping the grass trimmed let alone denuding the area.
One other observation, they scratch up newly sprouted grass etc. much, much, faster than older established plants with a real mat of roots. So you may want to leave one of your pastures without chickens for a couple of years to let it all establish.

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