An initial understanding of socio-economic factors that determine households’ decision to keep small ruminants and non-ruminant livestock is imperative when formulating technologies and policies that augment livestock production. Therefore, this article was started with the objective of bringing to light the socio-economic factors affecting the decision of smallholder farmers’ households to keep small ruminants and non-ruminant livestock. We used the Malawi Third Integrated Household Survey data, commissioned by National Statistical Office, in which 5 711 households were randomly sampled and interviewed from March 2010 to March 2011. The article fits a simulated maximum likelihood multivariate probit to the data. With respect to the policy variables considered in the analysis, unlike higher education levels and older household heads, younger household heads are more likely to keep small ruminants and non-ruminant livestock. Extension contact and credit access did not promote the keeping of small ruminants and non-ruminant livestock. There is a strong location bias towards keeping small ruminants in the central region of Malawi while there is also a bias against keeping pigs in southern Malawi. Reshaping extension packages toward well rounded crop-livestock messages is an important factor to consider in promoting small ruminant and non-ruminant production in Malawi.