Animals play diverse roles in permaculture, they’re useful in clearing gardens and participating in natural cycles by consuming plants, insects, and weed seeds —all while improving soil fertility.
These animals offer valuable resources in return, such as eggs and meat for their keepers.
I want to discuss three animals in particular, geese, muscovy ducks, and guinea fowl that are highly useful for small homesteads and acreages.
Geese excel in weed control, sustainable meat production, and egg-laying.
Muscovy ducks, known for their excellent foraging abilities, specifically target mosquitoes and their larvae, requiring minimal inputs.
Guinea fowl are particularly useful for properties dealing with tick problems. Similar to geese and ducks, they provide a source of meat and eggs that might not be popular to consume in this country, but is nonetheless vey delicious.
Geese
On our land, we impulsively acquired a breeding trio of African geese during the first spring.
These geese were incredibly large and fascinated me as they grazed on grasses all day, fertilising the land wherever they went. Remarkably, the overgrown pasture provided most of their dietary needs, with only a small weekly portion of grains required, easily sourced from our own farm.
After their arrival, the females laid a clutch of 20 large eggs, from which 10 goslings successfully hatched and thrived. These goslings grew rapidly on grass alone, and by autumn, each matured gosling yielded over 12lbs of sustainable meat.
As my experience with geese deepened, I began utilising them as weeders, introducing them to various invasive plants from a young age. To my delight, they eagerly targeted those plants when given the freedom to roam.
The only challenge we faced was having too few geese to tackle all the invasive species inherited on our land.
I also learned about the ‘Cotton Patch Goose,’ a nearly extinct species that was used on American farms, industrialisation, to help control weeds.
Muscovy Ducks
Along with the noxious weeds and invasive we had acquired on our new land, came mosquitoes. But as we free-ranged our Muscovy ducks I would notice suddenly one night that the buzzing swarms had all but disappeared.
It wasn’t from heat or any chemical inputs. It dawned on me that the Muscovies, who will stay out much later and longer than chickens to hunt, had potentially played a part.
As I researched the topic, I learned that Muscovy will in fact target mosquitoes and their larva.
Ducks are one of the few animals that feed both on flying adult mosquitoes, as well as the mosquito larvae.
The subsequent year we had far less mosquitoes.
Additionally, a study* conducted in Canada actually found that Muscovy ducks caught 30 times more flies than several types of commercial fly traps.
Study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2376638/
The Muscovy, while requiring more feed than geese, still requires very little, compared to something like a chicken. And yet many duck species lay as well as the best performing chicken egg layer breeds.
Ducks can be left to free range all day and given access to a feeder for 15 minutes in the evening during the warm months.
Guinea Fowl
It is a pervasive instant myth that possums eat ticks — but Guinea fowl most assuredly do.
They will decimate tick populations along with other insects like earwigs, roaches, and more.
Guinea fowl also don’t get much larger than a laying hen — about 4lbs.
While their bizarre striking appearance and obnoxious noise might put some people off, I love the possibilities of this semi-wild bird for pest control.
They’re remarkably self-sufficient too, spending the entire day foraging and hunting, and as they can fly, they can evade predators better than a duck.
Guinea meat is excellent eating and so are their eggs and in some places they are considered delicacies.
Geese, Muscovy ducks, and Guinea fowl can all be an excellent addition to many properties.
The bedding from all of these animals makes for excellent compost. Plus there is the option to growing certain crops like amaranth and millet to meet additional grain and carbohydrate dietary requirements.
When considering animals and their roles on your land and within your permaculture systems, give these serious thought.
I was debated whether or not to add ducks or not. Being in the Florida the mosquito control is a serious consideration. Thank you.