neighbours!

[raine]

Hi, I was just wondering how your neighbours reacted when you first got your chickens? We hope to be moving soon and are downsizing to a small cottage with a small garden. However it's still plenty big enough for an eglu (which is what we've decided on), and i just want to know if anyone out there has had any objections from those living next door - i don't want to start out on the wrong foot especially as it's a town place, not a country one, if you see what i mean!
Thanks

[TrishY]

I have an Eglu in a small back yard and the neighbours haven't said anything. We're more in the country and surrounded by cockerels on the allotments in the village and the chooks are also unable to compete with the dawn chorus. The hens aren't really that noisy apart from between 9-10am at the mo, when they let everyone know they are laying an egg. The Eglu and run makes the chooks look more like pets (which they are to me)

[vicky]

It's probably wise to let neighbours know of your plans, not to put eglu anywhere it would inconvenience them and to reassure them they aren't noisy and you will look out (and deal with) rats.
Free eggs could smooth the way!
But my neighbours love my chickens, the neighbours 2 doors away also have a cockerel who is also loved!

[Two_Sheds]

Chickens will make far less noise and mess than children! Take your neighbours some fresh eggs and they'll love your new brood.

[TPeers]

Just don't get a cockerel! You don't need one for egg production and in a town setting their crowing is classed as a noise nusance.

Other than that - for the winter my hen house and run have been down on the patio, up against the house wall, to be out of the wind and off the swamp we laughingly call a lawn. The only comment from my blind (and very sharp hearing) neighbour - how nice I can hear the hens at last!

Terry

[Tracey]

To make a good start with your neigbours I'd mention that your thinking about getting chickens and see how they react. If they have any objections you could discuss it with them at this early stage. They may think they'll be noisy or smelly and you can reassure them that hens aren't noisy, they just gently cluck, and they won't smell because you'll keep them clean.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy your future chooks.

Tracey

[shirlthegirl43]

Years ago our neighbours got chickens - we would not have minded at all except they had a blooming cockerel that thought his job was to wake the dawn chorus. I could have happily wrung that little banty cock's neck some mornings at 2am!!! We hope to get hens this summer sometime and the neighbour is delighted but says she would rather we didn't get a cockerel!

[TPeers]

Years ago our neighbours got chickens - we would not have minded at all except they had a blooming cockerel that thought his job was to wake the dawn chorus. I could have happily wrung that little banty cock's neck some mornings at 2am!!! We hope to get hens this summer sometime and the neighbour is delighted but says she would rather we didn't get a cockerel!

Can you blame her!? She had to live with her mistake too.

[shirlthegirl43]

Can you blame her!? She had to live with her mistake too.

Her husband's mistake - sad thing was instead of just getting shot of the ruddy cockerel, they gave away all the chooks! I guess another case of people that thought you wouldn't get eggs without the cockerel.

[HappyMouffe]

I wish we could have a few chooks, but unfortunately it's written into the deeds of the house that we can't keep poultry. I've been reading up on them and really fancy and eglu and 3 chooks

[raine]

Thanks all, I think I will just mention it over the garden fence and assure them that we'll be cockerel free!

[janeyo]

Hi you will find as long as you give them a couple of fresh eggs every now and then and don't keep the coop too near their boundary they will be fine about it.
They maye even look after them for you and get to keep the eggs of you go away.

janeyo

[MadamJoJo]

I wish we could have a few chooks, but unfortunately it's written into the deeds of the house that we can't keep poultry. I've been reading up on them and really fancy and eglu and 3 chooks

Go on, be a devil and get some....if the chicken police come round, just say you are chicken sitting, I'm sure 3 won't hurt !! P.S. Why do post WWII title deeds have this prohibition to keeping chickens....I am intrigued?

[Eyren]

I wish we could have a few chooks, but unfortunately it's written into the deeds of the house that we can't keep poultry. I've been reading up on them and really fancy and eglu and 3 chooks

I think it may depend upon the exact wording - if the hens in question are few in number, they may count as pets rather than livestock. You would have to take legal advice on that, though - I'm no expert!

As to why post-WWII houses often have a covenant against poultry-keeping, in the 1920s poultry-farming was being promoted as a new career for returning soldiers (I read an interesting article in "Practical Poultry" about it). Were people being discouraged from owning hens in order to bolster the egg industry? Or was it that as new plots became ever smaller, it wasn't thought possible to keep chickens hygienically in such a small area? The 1950s was the decade of spotless housekeeping standards, after all

Fortunately my house, though built in the 1980s, has no such covenant as far as I can tell. Probably it was no longer seen as an issue by that point, since few suburban folks kept chickens by then...

[heebiejeebie]

I asked the neighbours on both sides beforehand and promised no cockerel crowing. My feathered family is quieter than the neighbours' kids.