Coop & flock
How many chickens can I keep per acre?
About 50 birds an acre if you want the sod to survive. Fewer if the ground is wet, far fewer if you never rotate them.
How this works
Straight talk: pasture alone will not keep layers laying — forage covers maybe 5–20% of the diet in good season, and none in winter. What the acreage DOES buy is living ground: past ~50 full-size birds per acre the sod dies and you keep a dirt lot instead.
Questions people ask
Will pasture feed my chickens?
No, and this is the most common expensive misunderstanding. Foraging supplements a laying ration by maybe 10 to 20 percent in summer. Birds on grass alone stop laying.
Why does my run turn to bare mud?
Too many birds on ground that never rests. Chickens scratch the crown out of grass faster than it regrows, and rotation is the only real fix.
How often should I move them?
Before the ground shows through, which on good sod at 50 birds an acre is usually a week or two per paddock.