Group Guide
Poultry
The pets that pay board — and the group where the fox, not the disease, is the first thing to design for.
Poultry are the only animals on this site that earn their keep, and the eggs are how casual acquisition gets rationalised: a few chooks, a flat-pack coop, sorted. The honest version is that these are intelligent flock animals with real housing and feeding needs, and that trauma — the fox, the dog, the door left unlatched — is the most common problem affecting backyard poultry.1 Build the fortress first and feed properly second, and the eggs turn out to be the least of what they give back.
At a glance — all poultry
- Lifespan
- 2–25 years
- Adult weight
- 100 g – 14 kg
- Eggs
- None to nearly one a day — species and season decide
- Minimum housing
- A predator-proof coop and run, built before the birds arrive
- Company
- Flock animals, all of them — pairs and groups, never one
- Noise level
- Soft chatter to a scream that cancels suburbs
- Diet
- A formulated feed for the species and life stage — not grain alone
- Predator-proofing
- Foxes work every suburb, every night; assume yours
- With children
- Genuinely good, supervised — then wash hands
Backyard poultry count as food-producing animals to the regulator, whatever they are to you: in Australia medicine use in a pet hen is regulated exactly as in a commercial flock, and treatments carry egg-withholding questions your vet answers.2
Species · 8 listed
Every entry below is a species page with its own breeds, costs and honest warnings.
Chicken
- Never keep one
- Fox-proofing first
- Council rules apply
The gateway livestock — half pet, half pantry, wholly underestimated.
Duck
- Water to dabble
- Mud is certain
- Duck feed, not chook feed
Cheerful, hardy, and a better layer than most hens — at the price of your lawn as you know it.
Goose
- 20-year commitment
- Grass grazer
- Seasonal temper
A lawnmower with a memory: loyal for twenty years, loud on purpose, and serious every spring.
Guinea Fowl
- Extremely loud
- Free-ranging
- Not for suburbia
A security system that eats ticks, screams at clouds, and has never fully agreed to being domesticated.
Japanese Quail
- Tiny footprint
- Short lives
- Startle flyers
The smallest livestock there is: an egg nearly every day from a bird that fits in one hand.
Muscovy Duck
- Nearly silent
- Flies well
- Clawed feet
The quiet one: a duck that hisses instead of quacking, roosts like a chicken, and flies like it means it.
Peafowl
- Acreage only
- Screams in season
- 20-year commitment
The most spectacular animal anyone can casually acquire, with a voice that cancels postcodes.
Turkey
- Never with chickens
- Heritage strains only
- Big and friendly
The personable giant of the poultry yard — provided it never grazes where chickens have.
The three things that kill backyard poultry
- The fox. Not one day — the first night the latch fails. The coop is the purchase that matters; buy the strong one, not the pretty one.
- Grain alone. A formulated feed exists for every bird on this page; the all-grain bowl is tradition, not nutrition.
- Other people's birds. Quarantine every newcomer, every time — mites, worms and worse arrive on new legs, not on the wind.
Sources
- Sato Y. Common Management-Related Problems in Backyard Poultry. MSD Veterinary Manual, professional edition. MSD Veterinary Manual 2025. Accessed 2026-09-07. International MSD Veterinary Manual Trauma is the most common problem affecting backyard poultry — predators, entrapment, crushing and pecking injuries. Poultry fed predominantly scratch and table scraps are predisposed to fatty liver, and death from it comes by liver rupture and haemorrhage. Cage layer fatigue (osteoporosis) is common in chickens, Coturnix quail and Khaki Campbell ducks, with high-production breeds more susceptible. Egg binding is common in pullets brought into lay too early and in obese hens, and can be life-threatening. Pheasants and quail are notorious for cannibalism.
- Doneley B. How should I care for my backyard chickens? RSPCA Australia Knowledgebase. RSPCA Australia 2023. Accessed 2026-09-07. Australia RSPCA Australia Veterinarians still see chickens with nutritional diseases — obesity, liver disease, heart problems, bone disease — resulting from the long-standing but incorrect belief that grain is all a chicken needs. Chickens are flock animals and should not live a solitary life. Local council regulations may restrict the number and types of birds kept, including roosters, guinea fowl and peafowl. Medicine use in backyard chickens is regulated by the APVMA exactly as for commercial poultry, because chickens are counted as a food-producing species with no backyard exception.
Every source here was checked, not recalled. Where this page makes a health statement and no source appears against it, that is not an oversight we have hidden — it means the claim is not yet sourced, and the build reports how many are in that state.
Availability, registration and keeping requirements differ from place to place. Check the rules where you live before you commit to any animal — we describe animals, not law.