Definitely start with chickens! Ducks are lovely, but the kiddie pool in winter deal does really suck, and they muck it up so fast that the water has to be changed every few days!
As far as roosters crowing "A LOT", they actually don't. I have something like ten roosters right now, and most of the day it's dead quiet! Female ducks, on the other hand.... "QUACK, quack quack quack quack, QUACK quack quack quack quack quack" every time something near them moves. EVERY. TIME. Roosters crow on a schedule, or at least mine do. They go for about 5 minutes at sunrise, then again when I let them out, and then at around 3 in the afternoon, and - depending on the time of year - they'll have another round of song in the evening.
Keep in mind that building a coop won't be cheap, not with the cost of lumber -ESPECIALLY sheething - these days! One sheet of 1/2" OSB in NS is almost $40 right now! And a good sized coop - my favourite size - is 6'x8' (roomy for when birds refuse to step outside during winter, and you can move around inside with the shovel easily) which adds up to several hundred dollars worth of material, and then there's the cost of fencing for when you can't free-range them, and chickenwire is scarce - in my province, anyway - last time I checked.
As far as roosters crowing "A LOT", they actually don't. I have something like ten roosters right now, and most of the day it's dead quiet! Female ducks, on the other hand.... "QUACK, quack quack quack quack, QUACK quack quack quack quack quack" every time something near them moves. EVERY. TIME. Roosters crow on a schedule, or at least mine do. They go for about 5 minutes at sunrise, then again when I let them out, and then at around 3 in the afternoon, and - depending on the time of year - they'll have another round of song in the evening.
Keep in mind that building a coop won't be cheap, not with the cost of lumber -ESPECIALLY sheething - these days! One sheet of 1/2" OSB in NS is almost $40 right now! And a good sized coop - my favourite size - is 6'x8' (roomy for when birds refuse to step outside during winter, and you can move around inside with the shovel easily) which adds up to several hundred dollars worth of material, and then there's the cost of fencing for when you can't free-range them, and chickenwire is scarce - in my province, anyway - last time I checked.
