Scott Ehresman

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:
From the article Raising Chickens 2.0

The important part of this pic is to note how much greenery was consumed yesterday. These are about five feet wide and ten feet long. With 35 chickens in each. That, in my opinion, is way too many chickens for such small pens. I think that such small pens should have no more than 15 to 20 birds and should be moved at least twice a day. Salatin recommends that the birds consume about 30% of the vegetation. This looks more like 90% to me.

Yikes! That's horrifying. I think I can avoid that situation with my five pampered ladies 😂 Thanks for the link and reply!

paul wheaton wrote:

Nancy Reading wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:

renting an excavator for a day is fine.  Note the cost.

How about borrowing some pigs or other llivestock for a week to clear the site? I don't know much about keeping livestock, but it occurs to me that pigs would be excellent at this. Chickens to a lesser extent because they wouldn't dig up the roots so much.
If you're allowed fuel for an excavator, food for some manual help would also seem fair?

If the animals are not tortured or abused in some way (like is often done with chicken tractors) then it seems okay.

What's the story with abusive chicken tractors? Is the assumption that most chicken tractors are too small for the number of chickens people stuff into them? Does anyone out there have a good rule-of-thumb for how many square feet per chicken is humane for a chicken tractor? I live in an area with so much raptor and coyote pressure that it's difficult to get the girls out and about without using a chicken tractor.