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For your business to thrive, you need to provide a healthy environment for your chickens. It involves a nice balance of space in an incredible ecosystem that will allow your garden to flourish. But, how much space do you really need for chickens?
It will work wonders for your flock if your chicken coop gives each bird a 2 square feet space. For example, for 1000 standard large chickens, you will need 2000 square feet.
“A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg”, as Samuel Butler put it. You must love how this principle is working for you or this may just be the right time to apply it if you’re considering growing the size of your poultry farm.
How to Determine Your Flock Size and Space Requirements
Spacing is the most basic housing principle for your poultry farm. It is the space available that determines the number of chickens you can keep. It also dictates the type of chicken you can keep. Different chickens have different space requirements. To determine your flock size and space requirements, you need to settle on the type of chicken breed you like most.
A breed like Bantam gives you significantly smaller chickens than most heavy chicken breeds. It would therefore require less space as compared to the heavy breeds with considerably large chickens. However, a Bantam chicken could lay larger eggs relative to its size. You will need to establish the main business in your chicken business.
Space requirements are not necessarily constant throughout your poultry farm. It varies depending on the age of your flock, the breed, climate, and season, and how you will manage the free-range garden time. The most effective chicken space considers the chicken coop space requirement as well as the outside pen space requirement.
Whether you are keeping broilers or layers, you need an adequate spacing system for the best results. If you are using a deep litter house measuring 16.4ft by 36.1ft you can hold 150 laying hens. The stock density would be about 3 birds per 10.76 square feet (1 square meter). Hen flocks can comfortably be kept in a space of 3 to 4 birds per 10.76 square feet.
Allowing more space for layers will give them room to exhibit a variety of behavior. Currently, the density used in commercial laying cages is 22 birds per 10.76 square feet. However, individual birds require more room for normal behavior and adequate space. More space means more happy and healthy birds and your production rates will remain at their best level.
Your flock size and space requirement is directly determined by the age and weight of the individual chicken. For instance, a layer of not more than 6 weeks of age with body weight not exceeding 400g will need at least 0.16 square feet. It also matters whether the hen is a typical white-egg layer or a brown-egg layer.
To determine your chicken coop space requirement, you need to settle on where your chickens will spend the better part of their day. It will also help with determining the free-range and outside pen spaces.
How Many Chickens per Feeder
The number of chickens per feeder-sharing is dependent on several factors. First, the size of your feeder. Its length, height and depth determine the amount of chicken feed it can hold. Secondly, the feed requirement of your chicken.
The older your flock gets, the higher their feed requirement demand. For best results, your chicken feeder should be categorized according to the age of your flock. Allocate 8.2ft feeder space for every 100 chickens between 1 and 4 weeks of age. 100 chicken between 6 to 10 weeks will need 18ft of feeder space. Between 10 and 14 weeks, 32.8ft of feeder space will serve the purpose. 15 weeks and above require 42.7ft feeder space.
If you have a feeder 8.2ft long, 100 young chickens will comfortably use it. On the other hand, the same feeder could only accommodate 20 chickens. As your chicken grows, their feeder space increases and this means you will have to allocate fewer chickens per feeder.
How Much Space Do 1000 Chickens Need?
Taking care of your chicken primarily involves providing adequate and safe space for them to grow and be healthy. Restricting space on your flock of chickens causes stress, pecking, and cannibalism. All these will not only affect your poultry farm negatively but could also lead to the death of some of your chickens. To keep a happy and healthy chicken flock, you must give it adequate space.
Depending on where you live, 2 square feet per hen is considered the industry standard. It may vary slightly based on your local legislation and the type of management techniques you employ. If you use a free-range, it would be best to consider more space.
For 1000 standard large chickens, you will need 2000 square feet. It will work wonders for your flock if your chicken coop gives each bird a 2 square feet space. A standard chicken requires an outside pen space of 8 to 10 square feet. You will therefore need a minimum of 8000 to 10000 square feet outside pen for your 1000 chicken.
However, you can employ proper space management techniques without clearing an entire piece of land for your chicken. Effectively managing your free space will save you a headache and also give your chicken enough space to thrive.
Allocate 250-300 square feet for each chicken for your free-range. Since the 1000 chickens are roaming around, plan on how to utilize the 250,000 square feet of range space. You could divide the space into 4 groups and sections of (250×250′) and use a mobile chicken house. It will allow you to rotate the flock to different sections of the range space each week. You also get to allocate 62,500 square feet of range space for each flock of 250 chickens.
If you prefer Bantam chickens, you will get to save on some space since they are relatively smaller compared to the standard chickens. The chicken coop space requirement for a Bantam chicken is 1 square foot per. With only 4 square feet, you are able to provide adequate spacing for your bantam chicken in an outside pen.
