Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

I know. I was totally being cheeky mixed with sarcasm and a dash of smarta*s

your in luck... the city of Guelph does allow people to keep poultry and waterfowl... they dont even have a set number of which you are allowed to keep! man thats great! I wish all cities were like that. however they are supposed to be confined in a coop/pen with a floor that they cant escape from.

http://guelph.ca/living/pets-and-animal ... o-animals/
LOL Sandy I thought so but there was no LOL.

SandyM wrote:QR_BBPOST Maybe some guinea fowl is a good idea for her. I hear they are fairly quiet backyard'ers

Guineas are not quiet, I have a flock of about 30 and they are anything but quiet. They do sound a loud alarm at anything out of the ordinary or just because "reasons".

She said " tongue in cheek " hahaha Luck

SandyM wrote:QR_BBPOST Maybe some guinea fowl is a good idea for her. I hear they are fairly quiet backyard'ers

I almost wet my drawers laughing so hard Sandy, that's a good one!! Pete.

I had one guinea. One. Even after 6 months I found myself saying WTH is THAT noise?! Never again lol

My Welsh Harlequins are quacking away all night. Not very loud but constantly talking.

The story of call ducks is that they were used for live decoys... But i suspect they were used in moats to quack when someone approached. The same as pea-sized gravel that crunches when you walk on it. Old fashioned security...

Hey Jennbee - I've only had my BEIs for the last week and a half so I can't really comment on their voices at this time. I wouldn't say at this point that they are any louder than my other large breed domestic ducks - they just have a higher pitched call, which may grate on some peoples nerves over time. Time will tell when they start breeding. I will let you know if they change. If you are truly concerned about noise level and you do not care about egg production, I would also suggest Muscovies. I have some. Obviously larger than BEIs but they are quiet, forage well, make awesome meat ducks and do lay nice big eggs. They have great personalities and come in many distinct colours and patterns - so you can tell them apart! They can fly but this is easily remedied by clipping some of their primary feathers. BEIs also fly and require wing clipping.

Hope this helps. Chris.

Thank you for the responses everyone. Sorry for the delay, I thought there would email notifications of responses and so I hadn't logged in all week.

Yes, Guelph is quite supportive of backyard poultry. Although, I've heard some nosy/grumpy neighbors will complain to bylaw officers until birds taken away so everyone still has to be careful. My neighourhood is great and my closest neighbours love my birds. I live in an older areas so the backyards are huge, very country like. However, I'm sure if I got a flock of female call ducks it would piss some people off, haha. I like the idea of "guard ducks" though!

I've read how messy ducks can be... still humming and hawing over how annoying that would be. I am slightly obsessed with keeping my coop and yard clean so doubting that the ducks will cause me more work since I'm out there all the time anyway.

So many people rave about muscovies... I'd love some ducklings so I can hand raise them (and perhaps honestly/stupidly, ducklings are so cute!)... but can they be sexed at hatch? If I ended up with a male, would he cause problems with my chickens?

Thank you