[chooksquacks]

Hi all 

I currently have 10 hens (medium sized bantams) and 5 ducks (3 runners, a saxony and a white campbell), they have a fenced enclosure which is about 90 square meters. It's utterly bare. I inherited 5 chickens (only one off those left standing now) and 3 of the ducks when we brought the house 6 years ago and they were in a tumbling down ramshackle enclosure which was already here. We had them free range for a while but despite having a mains electric fence around our perimeter we had fox problems.  We hastily built the run they are in now (the aforementioned 90 square meters) to keep them safe.  We are working out the building of a better enclosure for them in a better spot elsewhere but we want enough land that we don't end up with more bare ground, but not so much space that we have to struggle getting the tractor in there to mow it every 5 minutes.

Does anyone have any idea of the magic number of square meters per animal for UK soil (we are in east anglia on a pretty even mix of clay, sand and silt) for the ground to cope with the chicken/duck poop and not end up with a barren nettle wasteland?

We don't have any grazing animals, we have large dogs who take enormous pleasure in flying around the place during the day (now we don't have horses), but I have wondered about fencing a larger area and keeping something in with the poultry. Does anyone else do this? I'd be really interested to hear what you keep and how much work/expense they are?

[davet]

Chickens are really hard on grass.  They love to scratch it up and dig it up.  Without some kind of rotation they will always kill some spots off.

[twizzel]

Chickens like to scratch any grass away and ducks like to make mud puddles, so a combination of the 2 will mean any grass won't last long. I let my hens scratch the grass away and then put woodchip over the whole pen.

[Izzy]

From my observations of a number of hen set ups I would say the best option for both hens and grass is to have a run and henhouse on wheels or skids. This is moved every week or day either by hand or a small tractor.

[Dans]

We have 12 chickens in an area of about 284m2 and they haven't wreaked it, just the area directly in front of the hen house (where we walk everyday as well) that is bare. It is a big area for them, and we are increasing our flock so we will see if we reach a stocking density where the ground struggles.

Oh we are in Lincs and are pretty much just clay. Where the ground is bare it is cracked, very little topsoil here except around the trees. Which there are quite a few of in that area.

Dans

[chrismahon]

15m2 per chicken worked in the UK and works here as well, but it must be combined with daily poo picking.

[doganjo]

I divided my back garden into two - bottom half has large double gate from the drive, it was gravel over hardcore.  I had a natural pond dug which goes up and down with teh water table so i need to deepen it - the ducks are sometiems just standing in it.

Top half is for me and teh dogs, but I have garden seats round the pond so I can go and fraternise with them on fine days and get peace from the scruffs

Grass, moss and wild flowers as well as nettle and thistles appeared over the two years since the fence went up (made of pallets by my son), so much of the gravel can't be seen, but it means that the birds haven't trashed the place and their poop gets washed into the hardcore underneath. keeps their feet tidy too.  They have inside (at night, with pop hole to close them in) and outside dog runs, with a small attached covered dog run if they have to be restrained for any reason (bird flu lock down for example)

Works for me and my immediate neighbours.

[Marches Farmer]

Once birds have stripped an area of grass the most likely things to emerge first are thistles, dandelions and other unwanted weeds.