Small livestock

Small livestock such as chickens, ducks, and rabbits can play an important role in permaculture design, providing free-range food, controlling pests, and creating manure.

For most permaculture practitioners, such small animals can be easily fitted into food production systems, and they can be successfully kept without any great expertise or hard work. One much cheaper but very ethical investment can be made in acquiring ex-battery hens. Ex-commercial chickens can very quickly rediscover their natural instincts and once recovered, can become very productive for a few more years.