How many square feet do I need for my flock?

I regaled you with factors affecting chicken pasture size requirements last time, so now it's time for our specific example.  Starting this fall, I plan to have an eight chicken permanent flock (seven hens and a rooster), and I'd like to raise 30 to 40 broilers next year.  How many square feet of pasture would I need?

Let's look at how one pasture is doing right now, in early August.  I currently have seven adult (or near adult) hens and nine chicks (about 3 adult equivalents) in chicken pasture 3.  The pasture is still recovering a bit from being overgrazed last month, but is pretty lush (other than the bare spot in the shade where everyone hangs out during the heat of the day.) 

My gut feeling is that this roughly 900 square foot pasture can handle the flock for a week with no degradation while providing maximum forage to offset feed costs.  Factoring in my three pasture rotation, that would come to 270 square feet of pasture per bird at the peak of our food scrap season.  I might need 500 square feet per bird in the dead of winter to keep the same flock going without seeing chicken poop and bare ground.

(Clearly, I'm a snob since the highly regarded Label Rouge system in France requires only 27 square feet per bird.  That's the difference between your chickens getting a significant amount of their nutrition from pasture versus keeping just enough greenery around that your plants can nibble a bit.)

So how much pasture would I need for my ambitious broiler plan next year?  About 4800 square feet if I raise four broods of ten chicks each.  Since we currently have about 3,150 square feet of pasture separated into five paddocks, I guess we need to finish up at least two more pastures by spring.