Living 5o feet from another family makes certain choices VERY important. Your TV volume, height of your fence, amount of clothing to wear in your back yard, and what animals you can raise without causing grief for yourself as well as your neighborhood.

I have always believed that, much like family, you are stuck with your neighbors for better or worse, so you may as well get along with them. So when I decided I wanted to start raising chickens, one of the first things I did was to speak to my neighbors about my plans. I found that not only do my neighbors not mind, most were excited to have chickens in the area, and most hinted about loving fresh eggs. (I also found out eventually that we are not the first family on the street to have chickens!) So we started raising chickens, and passing out eggs to neighbors when we had a surplus.

A friend got me interested in coturnix quail, and I found that not only is their feed-to-egg ratio better than chickens, their space requirements and maturing time is less.

1. Chickens take 21 days to incubate, 4-6 months of feeding, care and housing before producing a single egg.
   Quail take 17 days to incubate, 6-8 WEEKS of feeding, care and housing before producing a single egg.
2. Chickens produce 180-300 eggs per year
   Quail produce 300+ eggs per year
3. Chickens, per bird, need 3-4 square feet inside, plus a run or free ranging, or 10 sqft if coop kept.
   Quail, per bird, need 16-25 square INCHES
4. Chickens require three pounds of feed for a pound of eggs
   Quail require two pounds of feed for a pound of eggs.

Quail need less space, less food, and less time. Add in the fact that they are relatively quiet, and when they ARE heard, no one says, “HEY! Someone has livestock over there!” It was a no-brainer. The only downside is that they require an incubator for raising each new generation. (But then so do most chicken breeds!)

So we added quail.

Rabbits were added due, initially, to the poor soil here. I needed manure, and LOTS of it, in order to improve my garden soil, in self-watering containers at that time. Finding that rabbit manure is the only “cold” manure, and able to be placed directly into use without composting, I leaned more towards getting them. After hearing that my dad was told by his doctor to ONLY eat rabbit for health reasons (and laughing when he would load up my cooler with all the rabbit he had in the freezer ever time we’d visit), I started eating it myself when I could, and found it enjoyable as a chicken replacement. The final point that pushed me into getting them was the amount of noise they made-none.

An additional points in I found out later in favor of rabbits is that a doe rabbit that weighs 10 pounds can produce 320 pounds of meat in a year. I currently have THREE breeding does – that’s almost half a ton of rabbit meat a year, silently growing and enriching both my table and my garden soil!

All these animals do create unique problems to raising them in the city, main one for me being manure disposal. Worms, wasps, black soldier flies, and regular flies abound. The first three in that list are welcome, but the last one is a nuisance, and almost an overall deal-breaker with the wife….

Until I learned of a homesteader’s best friend for cleaning up messes- Muscovy ducks. Excellent fly-catchers, mothers, egg-layers, dropped-feed cleaners, foragers, and yes, meat producers. Due to their tropical origin, they require less swimming water, are tree roosting birds, and are well-acclimated to my climate.

But they had me at “fly-catchers”.

Other things I’ve found since getting each animal type is my interaction with each eases my mind, and has a calming affect. In this time of uncertainty and dwindling freedoms, I’m finding it a nice getaway to have something that I have almost complete control. Each mistake is mine, as is each success. Both are important to me.

With more space, or a different locale, I’d probably have different animals, pigs, goats, sheep, pigeons, and guineas all come to mind. But, for now, these are the cards I’ve been dealt as far as what works here. I’m good with it.

Definitely a hand worth playing….