Procuring animals when you move to France seems to be something of a habit amongst expats – and it isn’t always the standard dog and cat pets that we are referring to. We know a couple who found a peacock wandering down their isolated road and its now practically a member of the family!
Poultry keeping, certainly in the rural areas of France, is commonplace and keeping chickens, geese and ducks can be very satisfying and there’s nothing like a fresh egg for your breakfast every day.
France is home to a vast array of wildlife thanks to large areas of relatively untouched and uninhabited countryside.
In some areas it’s not uncommon to see deer, wild boar, lizards, and a huge array of birds – we once saw a flock of Lady Amherst Pheasants running down the main road from our village!
Of course La chasse – hunting – is integral to the French way of life and hunting where I live is certainly an institution – some Sundays we err on the side of caution and don’t walk the dogs when the sound of guns is lively and prolonged.
Plenty of accidents happen every year in France so never go into a field or woods when there are signs of hunting in progress.
The various hunting seasons are given in a list published by the prefect of each department and these are available from the local town hall (Mairie).
Whether you are moving and want to take your dogs or cats to France, or whether you are buying or adopting a pet in France, we can help you with information and advice.
If you’d like to keep chickens or other poultry we’ll be blogging about our experiences to keep you amused and hopefully encouraged. If you have a “pet” problem like our unfortunate neighbours who have had fouine (stone marten rather like a polecat) move into their roof area let us know and we’ll cover it in this section and hopefully help you and other visitors with advice to control or repel unwanted visitors. If you’re interested – putting very strong moth balls in the roof seems to be the most successful way to get rid of fouine!
