Rotational pasture

[anniekrs]

Hello,
I would like to build 4 pasture runs attached to my coop and rotate my laying flock through them. This would allow for pasture recovery. I heard about this from my permaculture research.
Has anyone done this? Would love to hear your experience. Would my runs still need to be 10 sq ft per bird? Or would the sq ft need to change?
Thank you!!
Annie

 

[ShrekDawg]

This sounds like a great idea!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I considered it - ultimately abandoned the idea on the expense of partitioning my pasture, because the birds would go under, between, or over everything I erected. Now they free range (officially) 5 acres +/- but actually extend that to somewhat closer to 8 or 9 acres, all on my property.

Rotational grazing is much more important with cattle, goats, sheep - to help break parasite lifecycles and also to give the pasture time to recover between grazings.

 

[GirlsHuntToo]

Yeah I don't see anything wrong with this. Sounds like a good idea!

 

[Penpal]

You could get portable electric netting. Poultry netting is 48" high, regular is too low, 36"

Set up the netting as you would want your pasture set up and let the chickens in. Depending on the breed of chicken, they might fly right over the fencing, in which case you've saved yourself a lot of money in permanent fencing. You would see how long they wish to stay in that area. You can always add another unit to make the area larger. You can move it into odd shapes to avoid a problem area.

 

[saysfaa]

The minimum square feet would not change because it is based on the amount needed for social harmony.

Ten square feet per bird as a minimum is a rule of thumb thing - it is enough that most flocks in most situations can get along well enough to have no obvious problems getting along with each other.

It allows things like birds lower in the pecking order to move away when birds higher in the pecking order tell them to do so. It allows each bird to move around without getting on the nerves of another.

The shape of the space matters if the size is barely big enough - close to square is better than long and narrow, especially for small flocks. Whether there is clutter, multiple feeders, multiple waterers, multiple dust bathing spots, and so on matters. How active or flighty the chickens are can matter. How well the individuals like each other matters. Whether it is a multi aged flock or not matters. Rooster or not or how many roosters. And so on.

 

[Sally PB]

For a given length of fence, a circle will yield the most square footage in the enclosure.

A square will give you more than a rectangle.

 

[RoyalChick]

I tried this in an area of just over 10 square foot per bird and they were so excited at the new pasture they destroyed it in less than a day!
My next attempt will be to fence off areas within their broader pasture range to protect those and let new grass and weeds grow and then move the protection to a new area after a month or two.