Farmland size required to sustain a village

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Melissa K Norris:
Article: “Planning your Livestock for a Year’s Worth of Meat per Person“
“For my family of four, we raise one pig every year (or sometimes every other year as we don’t eat pork as often as other meat), 25 meat chickens, 8 egg-laying hens, 1/2 cow, plus our bonus salmon and crab that we source from the coast every year.”

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Families

150 persons / 4persons per Families = 37.5 families rounded to 38

Cows

1/2 cow per fam. x 38 fam = 19 cows butchered per year
It takes 2 years to raise a cow.
So at any 1 time, you will need at least twice as many cows.
So you will need 38 Cows at any 1 time.
Each cow needs at least One acre of pasture for a total of 38 acres.
Round it up, 40 cows, 40acres of pasture.

Pigs

1 pig per fam. x 38 fam = 38 pigs rounded to 40 pigs
40 pigs / 25 pigs per acre = 1.6 acres rounded to 2 acres
Rounding numbers 40 pigs, 2 acres.

Meat Chickens

25 meat chickens per fam. x 38 fam = 950 meat chicken PER YEAR
Meat chickens are butchered after 4 months. (8-10 weeks)
12 months per year / 4 months per chicken batch = 3 batch of chickens
950 / 3 = 316.6 chickens per batch.
You need some layers to generate the next generation.
320 chicken / 6 eggs (babies) per hen = 53.3 hens to keep to replace meat chickens.
Rule of thumb: One acre per 500 birds.
Rounding up numbers, 370 meat chickens on 1 acre. (can share cow pasture)

Egg laying chickens

8 to 10 laying chickens per fam x 38 fam = 380 laying chickens.
Rounding up numbers, 400 laying chickens on 1 acre. (can share cow pasture)

Summary

40 acres of pasture.

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