Fares

I am considering a move to Australia (or NZ), I am a New Zealand citizen and thus have the legal right of residence in OZ but I have lived in the UK for almost all of my life. My main reasoning for considering this move is the weather and the environment, I would like to be somewhere that isn't so bloody cold and crowded, with less densely packed people and more wide open spaces. I'm very into self-suffiency, and I would like to raise animals for meat, eggs and milk, derive my energy from free, sustainable and off-grid sources like solar panels, grow my own herbs, fruits and vegetables etc. etc. I have the skills and the drive to do that here and now, but it's been nigh impossible because there are so many restrictions in my local authority, for instance I can only keep a few quail or chickens, but no cocks which means that instead of being sustainable I have to keep purchasing more chickens because it's obviously impossible to hatch out eggs without a cock to fertilize the hens, and of course I can't keep any larger animals like goats so I can't have my own milk .

If I'm to purchase a property, I want it to be a place where I'm not restricted on what sorts of animals that I can have. In an ideal world, I would live in the middle of nowhere but realistically I'll need to be near some sort of city so that I can work a day job at least for the time being. I'm having a hard time finding out the laws about this sort of thing in Australia, all I can find is "in Sydney/Melbourne/Perth" you can only have X amount of chickens and no cocks/roosters" but what is Sydney/Melbourne/Perth? Just the small council areas around the city centres, or the entire urban conurbation?

I was wondering if anyone had information on the laws about keeping livestock in Australia, where you can and can't do it, or even better yet, a map of the areas where one is allowed to own and raise livestock without restriction, so that I know which areas I should even be looking at. I'm open to all of Australia but Queensland (because it's illegal to keep rabbits there, and I definitely want to continue raising meat rabbits) and the Northern Territory. Cheers!

rammygirl

It not only varies from state to state but council to council and within that township to township.

I live in a township in the Adelaide hills, Mount Lofty ranges area in SA and my neighbours have a cockerel, not ideal! Just outside the boundary of the built township are farms with cows, sheep and goats. I cycle past farms and vineyards and can walk past them from my home. I also have cafes and restaurants shops and supermarkets within walking distance and am 30 mins drive to the CBD and 40 mins to the beach.

People have acreage on outskirts of towns here and keep horses sheep,deer llamas cows poultry and goats. They may have a 10 min drive or so to a larger town like Strathalbyn or Mount Barker and are a 40min to an hour from the CBD.
I can’t imagine it being difficult as long as you are outside a built up area and have a couple of acres minimum.

There will be regulations, after all this is Australia, but plenty of people keep livestock round where I live so it is possible. Just look on google earth!

Fares

Thank you, how do you like South Australia? I spent most of my life in Gloucestershire, now I'm in South Wales, beautiful place and lots of opportunities if you want to have a massive commercial farm but for someone like me who just wants to feed himself it's very difficult, most of the land out in the countryside is too large and thus out of my range and the proper sized smallholdings are often in local authorities that are very strict about keeping animals, around 1.25 hectares/3 acres is what I want, more if it's hilly and/or wooded, which I would greatly prefer. Anywhere less than hour's drive at peak traffic from centres of employment (I'm a landscape architect by trade) would be ideal.


I'm okay with regulations as a concept, but it will be very limiting for me if I'm limited to having X number of goats, or rules about animal noise and things of that nature. I don't want to commit to a number because I want to find what works for me. I'm just trying to find as much as I can find now, so I know where or even whether to look. I'm also considering New Zealand, especially the South Island.

spuddyo

I live in a residential area on the Central Coast, my next door neighbor has goats, chickens and a donkey. The blocks are about 1200m2. As it's residential he isn't allowed to keep pigs and he cant have a cockerel though. However, 1km up the road there are acreages, many of which have cattle, horses, pigs etc. It depends on the local council rules in each area. The further out from the cities you go, the more they allow livestock to be kept. Just like UK really.

carcajou

Yes, this. It's extraordinarily common for people to have livestock animals around, including chickens in backyard coops in towns. Not, maybe, in Sydney, but outside the major urban areas. Whatever the rules are I'm sure you will find there is some way you can essentially keep what you want.

Make sure you are familiar with liability regulations (if your sheep gets out onto the road and causes an accident, what is your liability?) and make sure you are proficient at some of the less glamourous but vitally important aspects of agriculture, like keeping up the fencing and water management to make sure you can get your animals and crops through the summer without having to truck water in. Harder than it looks.

A few years ago there was a nasty and expensive court case between neighbours in WA, bits of scrap from one's GM crop blew over the boundary fence and on to someone's organic farm, which caused a loss of certification and led to the legal proceedings that I believe ran to about a million Dollars.