I have trialled various animals for sustainable lawn maintenance over the years and found guinea pigs to be the most effective for high-use areas such as lawns designated for sports and picnics. Housed in a movable cage and repositioned daily, guinea pigs efficiently graze all vegetation within 24 hours. Unlike rabbits, they do not dig, allowing for an open-bottom enclosure. Their manure is dry, odourless, pelletised, and inconspicuous, making it ideal for areas where we walk barefoot.
Geese and Muscovy ducks are effective grazers; however, their manure is wet, sticky, and malodorous, making them unsuitable for areas near the home. I still use them in other parts of the property.
Sheep are efficient lawnmowers with similarly inconspicuous manure but would occasionally nibble garden plants. I use sheep in orchards post-leaf fall, where they contribute to weed control and fertilisation. While they typically avoid bark, they occasionally prune small branches. I cannot use them when trees are in leaf.
Horses and cattle are effective in lawn management, yet their manure and tendency to browse on garden vegetation presented challenges. Like sheep, I use them in orchard systems following leaf drop and in areas with well-established gardens. But be mindful of their size. They can easily push over smaller trees.
Goats and donkeys are incompatible with gardens due to their destructive behaviour, including defoliation, ringbarking of trees, and consumption of virtually all vegetation. I do love them, and they are very useful in other contexts (like clearing forested areas and woody weeds), but they are unsuitable in close proximity to gardens.
Rabbits, while potentially useful, cannot be bred on our property due to the release of biological controls (e.g., myxomatosis) by the Australian government to manage feral populations. A neighbour’s attempt to breed rabbits ended in total loss.
We use guinea pigs as a practical alternative to rabbits for dual purpose lawn maintenance and meat production. It is practical to keep small animals for butchering during periods when meat stores are low and there is insufficient time to process a larger animal. I am able to butcher them on my own, and my children can do so independently as well. As we live completely off-grid with a very small (1kW) solar power system, our access to electricity, and therefore freezer space, is limited. Consequently, maintaining live animals as a source of fresh meat is a valuable strategy. In this context, they serve as our version of fast food. We do not buy any feed for them. They live on grass, kitchen garden scraps and tree fodder during dry times (mulberry, tagasaste, acacia).
