Chicken pasture shape

Shape is an important factor to take into account when planning a permanent pasture for chickens.  We've had a mother hen and her brood in the L-shaped chicken pasture 4 for about six weeks now, and they've worked hard at trampling down and eating the weeds right in front of the coop.  (See above.)



However, their depredations end abruptly as you turn the corner of the pasture.  Here's what it looks like just ten feet from where I took the top photo:

Part of that difference in grazing is simply due to the fact that, until they were a month old, the chicks were so tiny that the pasture was way too big for them.  Every night, their crops would be full to busting just from hunting on the door step, so why wander out of sight of Mom in the deep grass?

But even when I added the rest of our adult flock to the pasture in mid July, the hens were eschewing the far corner.  Luckily, the problem was easy to fix --- start throwing weeds and kitchen scraps  in a compost pile at the pasture's far end and add a chicken waterer, and suddenly even the chicks want to check it out.

The moral of the story is --- either make your pastures linear or add a point of interest at the hidden end if you want them grazed evenly.  (Or both.)