Rotational Grazing Rest Period for Pasture Chickens

Rest days are the whole game. Graze a paddock twice before it has leaf area back and you are mining the stand, not rotating it.

The pasture tool is the grass, not the 30-inch beds. It sizes a daily tractor pull, an egg-mobile yard, or a polywire break from dry matter the animals eat. Net is counted in 164-foot commercial rolls. Leave the paddock alone for the rest window. Come back early and the next graze hits a stand that has not grown back.

The rest window

On the ledger, Cornish Cross broilers rest 24 days in spring and 36 days in summer. ISA Brown layers use the same 24 and 36. Katahdin hair sheep on that ledger rest 18 days in spring and 30 days in summer. Spring rest is the short one because the stand is in flush. Summer rest is the long one because regrowth is slow.

The stand weights behind those windows are on the sheet. Spring flush is 2,800 pounds of dry matter per acre. A perennial mix is 2,000. Summer slump is 1,200. A cover crop is 3,200. Same flock, less grass in July, longer rest. Skip the summer number and you are grazing the reserve, not the regrowth.

Broiler tractor

Cornish Cross eats 0.16 pounds of dry matter per bird per day. Move is 1 day. Shelter is 1.5 square feet. The tractor is floorless. No net.

An 80-head pull on the ledger is a 1-day move on 120 square feet, no rolls, rest 24/36, manure nitrogen 1.8 pounds for that graze. Freedom Ranger is the heavier broiler on the sheet, 0.22 pounds of dry matter per day, still a 1-day move, shelter 1.8 square feet, still no net. Red Ranger sits between them at 0.198 pounds. The move interval does not change the rest. You still stay off 24 days in spring and 36 in summer.

Egg-mobile

ISA Brown eats 0.135 pounds of dry matter per bird per day. Move is 2 days. Shelter is 1.8 square feet. Fence is 48-inch poultry net, one 164-foot roll on the ledger example.

Forty hens, 2-day move, 470 square feet, 1 roll, rest 24/36, manure nitrogen 2.2 pounds for that graze. White Leghorn is lighter at 0.128 pounds and the same 2-day move. Black Australorp is heavier at 0.18 pounds and a 3-day move. Rest does not shrink because the move is longer. The paddock still needs the full window after you leave.

What the manure puts back

That nitrogen number is the deposit, not the credit. Year-1 plant-available nitrogen is half of the poultry figure. It is 40 percent for sheep and cattle. The soil balancer takes the credit, not the raw deposit. The 80-bird broiler pull shows 1.8 pounds of nitrogen, 1.3 pounds of P₂O₅, and 1 pound of K₂O on that graze. Half of 1.8 is the poultry credit. Do not book the full 1.8 against next year's fertilizer.

Sheep are a different paddock. Katahdin eats 5.25 pounds of dry matter per head per day. Twelve head on the ledger take a 3-day move, 5,881 square feet, two 164-foot rolls of 35-inch net, rest 18/30, and 1.6 pounds of nitrogen. The poultry rest numbers do not transfer.

Rest too short

A daily tractor move feels like rotation. It is only rotation if the last paddock is still empty on day 24 in spring and day 36 in summer. Pull the tractor back on day 12 and the birds hit regrowth that has not rebuilt leaf area. Intake drops. The stand thins. Next year's flush is smaller. The rest window is the rule. The move interval is just how often you pull the house.

Size the paddock from dry matter, count the net in 164-foot rolls, and leave the rest days alone.