How often do I need to shift paddock with 3 chickens on 36 sqm?

I intend to let our new chickens graze like Paul describes in the chicken presentation that can be found on Youtube. I want them to have a lush green paddock while getting around 5 times more growth on the recovering ones. We have 3 Orpington chickens right now and they will probably be 5 in the long run. How often do I shift? Is it really once a week, even with so little chickens?

Hi Tomke,
It really has to do with the condition of the ground they are on and how much of the ground they have access to. Keep in mind that chickens, while very useful on pasture, are not herbivores... so things will look different when they are done than when an herbivore is done. Also, the benefits to the pasture will be slow, when compared to herbivores or a combination.

For reference, I had 30 chickens in 600sqft, which is about 55sqm. Sometimes I could get 2 days out of the spot, but moving daily was best. I had about an acre and a half of open area that I moved them through about twice a year.

Better ground, obviously can support the chickens for longer. And while this disagrees with Paul's best chicken raising ideas... I like the idea of smaller paddocks moved more frequently. Primarily because animals have favorite foods too. And if they are given too large of an area, they will go around and eat their favorites (the "ice cream") first, and ignore other things that they can eat. If the area is smaller, then they exhaust the "ice cream" more quickly and will move on to other things. My goal was always to have my chickens be just a little hungry when I moved them, so they would dig right in on the new spot.

One other thing, is to make sure the chickens have a good dust bath available, otherwise they will make their own, and you will end up with divets all over your field... ask me how I know :)

Oh, I didn't know there was a difference between herbivores and omnivores in that regard. Why is that?

The ground is like playground sand with a very thin layer of topsoil with mosses/grasses and many dandelions (which seem to be the ice cream) and wild herbs. It is an orchard in a front yard. The soil gets quite dry in the summer and the grass mostly dies. I hope this will get better with critters getting some moisture in there.

Hi Tomke,
I'm not entirely sure, perhaps someone with more experience of the nitty gritty. I just know from my own personal experience that chickens was very slow to increase the pasture health. I also know from Ben Falk that he added sheep to his landscape and said it did more to increase health in one year than in the 7 years prior with other permaculture methods that not included herbivores. Size might make a difference, but I think it is the bacteria in their manure that is different.

With sandy soil, I would recommend VERY frequent moves with chickens, they like to scratch and sandy soil with dead grass can very easily turn into a wasteland with busy chickens. Don't get me wrong, chickens are great, but I'm not sure they are the best path for pasture improvement by themselves.

We mostly got them to love them as pets with an occasional egg, so pasture improvement is not my top priority at this point

The longer you leave them, the more likely they are to start digging. Chickens "scratch" by nature - I've seen day old incubator chickens do it! They absolutely can be hard on dry grass.

They are also to a great degree insectivores. If lots of insects are flying through the area, they will be content longer. I was told that the old advice, "4 paddocks/one week each" was based on animals being out of an area long enough to break many parasite issues, not based on how the land reacts to their presence.

From my experience, chickens need to be gone longer and stay in any place shorter than many of the recommendations. I think it's being affected by the decline of insects which is a serious problem in North America. If there's a variety of Black Soldier Fly in your region, or something like meal worms that you can grow easily and supplement with, that would help.

Ultimately, you need to just pick a schedule you can live with and observe how your land reacts. If you ask your girls, they'll tell you they'd like to move daily! They like all that ice cream!

Howdy!
For best result, watch your pullets and watch the land. Chickens are amazingly destructive. It's a bird thing, really. It's all based on how they are designed to find food and what effect that has on the surroundings.

Chickens are very, very good when combined with other animals. What they do helps by breaking up other animals' manure, removing pests and parasites, eating seeds, eating insects, scratching up and mixing things into the soil, and otherwise being the fluffy tiny rototillers they are.

If you are in an area where the ecosystem is more fragile and tending wet - wetlands, rain forest biome, and similar - I would suggest getting ducks and or geese. Geese graze. They are ruminants and their primary food is grass and plants; they don't need water but greatly enjoy it. Geese must have enough water to cover their bills so they can swallow and rinse their bills.  Ducks eat water plants and insects, apparently preferring things that tend to be around water. They need more water than geese for health reasons, but don't *need* a pond if you are able to change and refresh their water containers regularly.
Neither geese nor ducks scratch or are as blindly destructive of their environment as chickens, though geese will eat quite a lot and ducks are very capable of being very destructive - they do it in a different way.

Because of the time it takes for the land to recover from chickens being housed for several days, for the lightest possible touch and to quickly help the land regenerate, you might try a few simple things - keep them in a smaller than recommended area depending on what your land can tolerate, move them frequently - every day or two, water the area they were just on well - this helps to get the plants a start on recovery. It washes all those nutrients into the soil, gives the plants a chance to reset and start growing again, and puts the finishing touch on the whole purpose of moving your animals around.

You will find that different types of chicken will do things differently. Those three lovely pullets will be more likely to forage a bit, but not be little rototillers. Buff Orpington are more active than some breeds, but still very calm birds.

Chickens prefer to eat seeds and insects. They will eat meat and ... everything you give them. They are omnivorous, but fruit is higher on their list than seed and both are beaten by meat of any sort. You could feed your birds raw fish, cooked poultry, cooked eggs, or anything you might eat (with certain exceptions), but they aren't going to eat grass like a goose or duck would. They will eat it, please don't misunderstand me. It's just not their first choice.

Yes, make sure they have a dust bath in a protected area or they will make one to suit themselves.

Enjoy your girls and try not to stress. How much space do chickens need? Article.