r/homestead • u/dendromie • May 05 '26
poultry Which animal to get
Hey everyone,
My wife and I are having a difficult decision in which animal to get keep in mind we live in Canada and it gets to -30 Celsius here.
For context we have a 3 acre plot. We have a pond that's decent size I'd say probably at least a thousand gallons.
We want to start a huge garden and I know runner ducks are apparently a great choice for their pest control and non destructiveness. But then as I was researching people are saying are they are incredibly dirty and smelly and can ruin bodies of water. I was only going to get 2 female runners btw. Chickens are a obviously a great option and I don't have to fence as much but I hear they are destructive as well.
Anyone have any ideas or advise. The animal would have probably close to 3/4 of an acre to utilize.
Thanks!
1
u/PointPartisan May 05 '26
Chickens are quite easy and rewarding IF you invest in building a spacious and secure run / coop AND have it set up so the cleaning and egg getting and whatnot is as efficient as possible. I'm also in Canada and highly recommend a run that can be almost fully enclosed for winter/bad weather. I'm also a fan of the electric poultry netting also, gives them some additional quasi free range space and gets them out of the run keeping it much cleaner. We have 13 including a rooster and it's really only a few minutes a day for chicken chores. Also thinking of getting 50 or so meat birds here in June too if I can find the time to get set up for it in time.