Neil Winchell

Ann - I've ordered a couple dozen fertilized eggs of the Sulmtaler breed to incubate here, but since the eggs are coming through the mail I imagine I'll be looking at somewhere in the 40% hatch rate:( I think you are correct in suggesting that I try our a handful of different breeds to see which works out best. In the past I was looking at the White Chantecler, but gave up after numerous failed attempts at getting anyone to sell me some. If anyone here on the forum knows a breeder of White Chantecler chickens in Alberta who's willing to sell...let me know! I like the idea of developing my own breed, but really lack the knowledge to make an informed go at it. I'd probably just take all the chickens I could get, throw them in together, and see what I have after a few years of interbreeding:) I'm interested in the Jersey Giants, but will have to track down a breeder as well. There are a couple big hatcheries up here in Alberta that usually provide the main breeds to people, but they had a bad salmonella outbreak this year which caused many people (myself included) to have to kill off their flocks:( So if anyone is an independent breeder around here, I think they're going to get very busy in the coming years since no one trusts the big hatcheries right now.

Kelly - So you have 50 chickens in a run enclosed in 100 electric netting (I'm assuming that means a square with 25' of fence on each side, or 625 sq. ft?) with the coop inside? I like your idea of getting a number of standard broiler chickens and then a smaller number of different heritage breeds to see what works. Until my fencing is set up I'm not sure I can go with anything larger then what I have ordered now:) There is the standard three strand wire fence that's 4 feet high going around the property, but I imagine before I start letting the chickens free range it, I need to replace some of that with something that can keep the chickens in and the predators out. I'm thinking six foot high posts with 4' of farm fence along the bottom and two high tension wires around the top which could even be electrified if need be. I will look into the 'Buckeye' you mentioned though:)

Duane - The video was both confusing and interesting. Those stationary tractors is similar to something I had in mind forgetting some land ready for garlic. If I could build some narrow chicken tractors (3' wide by 50' long) I could put a number of chickens in there to get it ready for planting. Different then what the video was about, but close enough in my mind:) I know how good chicken manure is for fertilizer, but do many people here on the forums actually use the chickens themselves to till the earth a bit and get it ready for crops or gardens? If it's doable, I'd be able to add a few more 'paddock' areas to my rotation. The 9 permanent paddocks that I originally had planned where I don't want the chickens to destroy the grass and other vegetation, and 2 or 3 temporary paddocks where the chickens would be able to turn everything to dirt. Thoughts on that anyone?

Thanks again for the replies people. I'm learning so much here from all of you:)

Neil Winchell

Thanks for the replies!

I watched the video you suggested Duane, and it's nice to hear that someone is successfully raising 1000+ chickens on .5 an acre....though I'm betting it doesn't hurt to be located in a more temperate climate:)

I am kinda stuck on chickens, Kelly, though I am open to turkeys down the road:) I have a friend nearby who has raised a handful of turkeys and even with an 8 ft. fence and netting on top, he's had a couple get out. I can't imagine would would be required to raise turkeys out in the pasture. Clipping wings? As for feed and water, I've got some more planning to do. Because my dad has retired from raising chickens, I have access to thousands of feet of pvc tubing with nipple waters along it that I imagine I'd be able to incorporate into whatever movable coop I made. Perhaps even have it attached to a 55 gallon drum where any rain water could drain into from off the roof? Feed is another matter entirely. I'd love to plant various trees in each paddock to provide shelter as well as berries/fruit to the chickens when they drop off. I've looked into Black Soldier Fly larva but from what I've read it would be very difficult to get a good production of them up here in Alberta, Canada:( Has anyone here used the old 'meat in a bucket' method hung up out in the paddock so that fly maggots drop out for the chickens? Don't know if that would work for a batch of 300 chickens unless I had a lot of rotting meat hanging about:) Point being, I'd love to slowly develop a system where the chickens are as self sufficient as possible so that if I have to be gone for 4 days they won't miss me. You said you move the coop every two days, but how many chickens do you have and what size is the run you're giving them with the electric netting? Your numbers might help me extrapolate to something closer to what I have in mind:)

Rob, I'd love to eventually have some permanent fencing making up the paddocks, but I think you're right that electric netting is the way to go at first to find out the right size of each paddock. I'm hoping by dividing up the whole area into 9 paddocks, and with a maximum of 3 flocks out in the paddocks at one time, there will always be 6 paddocks that are resting and recovering....or do you mean have a few more on top of that? I might be able to do that, but if I took up more space then if possible I'd like to incorporate a small herd of sheep or a couple cows being added to the rotation. They'd be able to eat some of the plants the chickens won't as well as attract flies (protein!) with their manure.

Regardless, I'll be starting out slow with just a dozen or so layers this year which I'll beginning growing my layer flock until next spring where I'll get a few new Roo's for the ladies and begin. Depending on how things go I might stop after a few batches and see how things go with just under a 1000 birds:)

Throwing out another question to you all. The existing fence is a standard 4 ft. high. I can add some sort of netting to replace the barbed wire, but chickens would have no problem flying out at that height. Is it possible to extend the height a bit with something you attach to the top or is the best bet to replace all the posts with something that is at least 6 ft high?

Neil Winchell

Hello Everyone!

First time poster here, though I've been lurking for a long time gleaning wisdom from all of you:) I guess a quick backstory is in order. I grew up on a commercial broiler chicken farm and spent my youth cleaning out the barns and burning out my sense of smell until I graduated and as quick as I could, I ditched the boring farm life for the glitz and glamour of the big city. Only, I soon learned that the farm life that I complained about as a kid was paradise to what life was like off the farm in the city. I moved back to my home town, opened a movie theatre, and ran that for the past 14 years as I thought of ways I could get back to the country. During those years in town, I was able to get the town council to allow urban chickens (4 max, no roos) but 4 chickens was not enough.

Long story short, I recently sold my theatre and have used some of the money to buy 20 acres of agricultural land which I hope to raise poultry using the paddock system. Here in Alberta, farmers can have up to 2000 meat birds before needing to buy quota and so that is the long term goal in terms of numbers, but I realize that will probably take me a few years to get to that:) However, since the land is clear except for an perimeter fence, I want to plan for the 2000 birds now so that any building I do has the end goal in mind. Most of the discussions on raising chickens here in the forum seem to be focused on a lot fewer birds than 2000, but I'm hoping that any advice is scale-able.



I was thinking of fencing off approximately 6.2 acres (though that number is flexible to an extent), divide it up into 9 roughly equal parcels and move batches of up to 300 birds through them (moving them to a new paddock each week). I'd build a small barn with a large run for a base flock of layers from which to get the meat birds from, so using a large cabinet incubator I should have roughly 300 new chicks every 21 days (minus mortality). Once the next batch is hatched, they go into the brooder, the first batch would be taken out to the first paddock where a mobile coop awaits, and the cycle begins again. I know Cornish Cross X are ready to process at 8 weeks, but I'm looking at getting Sulmtalers as I've heard they are a very tasty bird and while I can't find information on when they are ready to process, I've been going with 12 weeks (so if I'm wrong...someone please tell me!:)

With this system of rotating paddocks, a maximum number of 300 chickens would be in an area of about 0.7 acres for a week before moving on to the next. That paddock would then have 2 weeks of rest before the next group went through. After six batches of chickens, no more would be hatched and the land could rest until next spring. Incubating would start the beginning of April and end beginning of July, and the foraging would start early May and the last batch would leave to be processed beginning of October.

That's the plan, but I have no familiarity with raising chickens in this manner before. My experience growing up was the commercial system where we had 50,000 raised in a barn for 7 weeks and then shipped off in the middle of the night in tractor trailers. My 4 backyard chickens count for very little too as town bylaws prohibit me from building a run larger then 100 square ft so obviously there isn't anything left in there for them to forage.

Is my plan doable? Would 300 birds (and that is the absolute upper limit, hatching mortality would bring the number down quite a bit I imagine) turn 0.7 acres of grassy field into dirt in a week? Is 2 weeks of rest for each paddock enough rest? I should also add that my current job is shift work away from the land and so if I'm gone for a few days I'd like there not to be too much work for my wife to have to take over, which is why I'm more interested in the paddock system vs. the Joel Saladin chicken tractor method which has to be moved once or twice daily.

Thoughts from you all? Doable? Foolish? If I need to move in another direction for raising my chickens, it's good for me to hear now when I've only got a handful instead of the full amount:)

Thanks in advance for any advice you have!

Neil Winchell