Chicken pasture experiment 2011

It's been a busy couple of weeks for our chickens.  First, Mark completed their new pasture on the sunny side of the yard, and we moved them over with much rattling of grain.  The flock was thrilled with dry soil to dustbathe in, tender chickweed to nibble on, and with their new and improved perch situation.  Egg production seemed to increase nearly immediately, and our white cochin's case of diarrhea disappeared.

Meanwhile, I've been putting a lot of thought into this year's chicken game plan.  You can read the long version over on our homestead blog by following the links below, but here's the summary:

• We're going to try to develop the perfect pastured chicken breed for our neck of the woods.  We've whittled down our flock to our best foragers and layers and are breeding them to expand our flock this year.
• We plan to raise several small sets of chicks either using a broody hen (if she'll cooperate) or the new, high-tech incubator and brooder we bought.  We'll keep some of the pullets as layers and eat the cockerels and any spare pullets as old-fashioned broilers.
  
• We're expanding our pastures to end up with seven (I hope!), giving us a total of a tenth of an acre of grazing space.  I'm playing rotation speed by ear.
• We'll be improving our pastures with chickens in mind.  We'll keep last year's two pastures as grain and legume growing space, but will treat the other pastures more traditionally (although I plan to add in some very untraditional plants.)

As usual, my forest pasture plans are extremely experimental, so don't emulate them blindly.  But I hope you'll play along at home and let me know how your own pasture experiments pan out.