The best part of chickens is they lay eggs. If you have twelve chickens and they all lay 1 egg each, you take the eggs and put them in a cooler with a light bulb in three weeks you will have 24 chickens. You can do this anytime and get more ...can't do with a cow. At the end of the garden season I can let my chickens in the garden and they clean it up for me.
If the government wants to take my chickens I can egg their car.
If we're talking about critters......Id take a pair of Nigerian dwarf does and a nice big wether to use as a draft goat. Maybe a boer cross? Haul a dump wagon for me, and pull the kids around in a cart in the summer and a toboggan in the winter. At least a trio of broken patterned New Zeeland rabbits for meat (red broken and black broken until I can get some blue brokens ) and a small group of hens. A blue egger, a Black Copper Maran, a Farovelle (for those pink colored eggs) and if I don't have enough eggs Id add a RIR or something that lays a normal brown egg to round out the little flock. I want to open the egg carton and find a whole mess of colors. Otherwise I'm good to go. Put up my bat houses, deploy my lady bugs and hatch my Mantis eggs every season and I'm a happy camper. Of course that's assuming I've got my 10'x12' greenhouse that I've run at a couple of outlets to so I have power and a water line so I'm not stretching a long hose either.