So I'll chime in with another "I know you said no livestock, but..."
Muscovy Ducks. Just gotta say that! They are very quiet, they don't make a lot of noise. Clip their flight feathers (ask me how if you need to), so they won't alarm the neighbors by roosting in their trees. Ours are very well behaved, they are fun animals. A few ducks waddling across your lawn isn't something that will usually offend the neighbors, because most people don't think to call ducks "livestock". They associate them with parks and lakes.
Muscovies produce a fair amount of eggs, reproduce well, and produce the BEST red meat ever. Tastes like marinated steak. Awesome. And it is more easily digestible than beef or wild game - so much so that people with digestive disorders can get much more nutrition out of it than they can from commercial meats. Other duck meat is NOT easily digestible, but Muscovy is. It is not greasy, just really good stuff.
They are so quiet, that our neighbors don't even know we have them, and we started with a flock of 16. They require less water than most ducks - ours have two dishpans full of water, which we clean out morning and night (we toss the dirty water at the base of our trees, or use it to dampen the compost pile).
Keep them in a fenced area. A 3' fence is high enough to contain them, lightweight wire dog fencing works fine. You can train them to herd too.
The best thing is, they eat LOTS of bugs, and they will devour weeds also. We had a grasshopper plague here when we came back from camp this summer. We got the ducks, and they cleaned out the yard in three days. Not a hopper left.
Just tossing that in for what it is worth...
Laura
Mom to Eight, Web Designer, Milker of Goats, Feeder of Chickens
THANK YOU!!!!
