Rotational Grazing or Alternating Yards?

[twentynine]

Quote:
I don't know how to respond, I may be misunderstanding.

My normal grazing schedule is 2 hours per week, per partition, with 10 chickens. At that rate I could sustain the large green plants, as seen in the before. The chickens never having time to damage stems or roots.

The pictures do not depict my normal grazing, they were intended to illustrate how much foliage 20 chickens can destroy in what amounted to less than 1 week.

The circumstances I found myself in, when intergrating the 2 groups of chickens, was not my normal. I had to deviate, to accommodate not only the additional chickens, but to also provide more room to releave some of the stress in mixing the 2 flocks. The everyday run for the 10 original chickens was only 200 sq ft. I thought an additional 200 was needed. That's why I "converted" my reserved grazing space to everyday run space. Thus the illustration.

 

[wyododge]

Quote:
My bad twentynine... I completely misunderstood your post! (Dohhhhh) No apologies needed from ya. We are doing the EXACT same thing! I have heard that every few years it is a good idea to let the chickens eat everything down to the ground to make sure they get all the grubs and such out. kind of a scorched earth via chicken method of insect control. Also puts down a nice layer of manure for fall and winter sweetening for the next years production.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm wondering why one couldn't just use electric poultry netting to rotate pasture and forget about plowing, planting, etc. in just two or so plots. Or is this a space issue?

 

[wyododge]

We use electric fence for cows and for the girls too, but just to keep em out of the garden... chickens can run FAST!!!

 

[Ariel301]

Quote:
For me at least, it wouldn't be a space issue, but a "nothing grows unless I plow, fertilize, plant, and baby it" issue. There's no grass here naturally. I'm planning on doing something like this though, I have found that bermuda grass grows fairly well with a few waterings a week (by accidentally getting it introduced into the garden through hay) and I'm thinking of planting a couple of small bermuda and field pea and collard green "pastures" to rotate birds through. I also saw a neat idea where someone took sturdy plastic mesh trays (kind of like milk crates only not so tall) and planted grass under them so that the birds could eat it as it grew out of the holes in the tray but they could not scratch it up or completely destroy it. That might be something useful in a small area or with only a few birds.

 

[wyododge]

Quote:
For me at least, it wouldn't be a space issue, but a "nothing grows unless I plow, fertilize, plant, and baby it" issue. There's no grass here naturally. I'm planning on doing something like this though, I have found that bermuda grass grows fairly well with a few waterings a week (by accidentally getting it introduced into the garden through hay) and I'm thinking of planting a couple of small bermuda and field pea and collard green "pastures" to rotate birds through. I also saw a neat idea where someone took sturdy plastic mesh trays (kind of like milk crates only not so tall) and planted grass under them so that the birds could eat it as it grew out of the holes in the tray but they could not scratch it up or completely destroy it. That might be something useful in a small area or with only a few birds.

Alfalfa does wonderfully in a hot, arid environment. And to boot it loves to be roughed up. After a few years we run an 's' tine through the filed and essentially break up the plants. it looks like a dirt field for a week, then KABOOM!!! goes crazy. You might give it a shot, planting rate is 12 lbs to the acre irrigated, 20 dry land. We did 15. Flood it and let it dry completely, then flood it again. It does like water, but does not like to be wet. On average 28" per year is what it likes for full production, but as pasture, we do about 14". if it gets to high and scraggly, run a lawn mower over it. It has an absolutely wonderful smell when it flowers too.