Free Legal Advice Is Worth What You Pay For It

valereee said:

To this I'd add: If you find that the laws or your neighborhood covenants are against you, but you'd still like to go ahead, DON'T SURPRISE THE NEIGHBORS. Before you get your chickens, talk to everyone who will be able to see your coop from their yard, even if they have to stretch their neck to do it. Explain what you're doing and address any concerns. Emphasize that you are strongly motivated NOT to annoy the neighbors with smell, noise, or an eyesore coop. Explain that roosters aren't necessary for eggs. Ask them to let you know if there's EVER any problem, and promise to take care of it immediately with no hard feelings.

Then, follow through. Place your coop where it isn't in anyone's view from their deck. Screen it with shrubbery if you need to. Make sure it looks good if you can't. If you accidentally end up with a roo, get rid of it before it starts to crow. Keep the chickens contained. Start handing out eggs the minute you start getting them -- a half-dozen eggs every couple of weeks will go a long way to making people see the bright side of having a neighbor with chickens. Invite them over for a drink and a little chicken-watching. If a neighbor does have a concern, address it without getting bent out of joint. A lot of cities won't enforce these kinds of laws until there's a complaint, so make sure you give your neighbors nothing to complain about.

Whatever you do, don't assume you can get the chickens and no one will notice, be alarmed, complain before they have something to complain about, or come to you before they call the police. Your neighbors will notice. Some will immediately think there's going to be crowing, noise, mess, or smell. Some will complain before any problems actually occur. Many people would rather make a semi-anonymous call to the police than risk coming to you first if they aren't sure you'll cheerfully deal with a potential problem, because they're afraid if they come to you, you don't solve the problem or potential problem, and THEN they go to the police, you'll know it was them and might try to get revenge.

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ohiofarmgirl said:

to add to this:

If you live in a rural area, this may not apply to you so use your best judgment. People normally only have problems where they are under residential zoning of some kind.​

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not necessarily. make sure you are zoned for ag use AND make sure there are no 'deed restrictions' on your property. some of the big "country" real estate firms buy up the big farms, divide into 5, 10 or 15 acre plots.. then restrict the use!!! and yes they CAN do it and no you cant get them taken off with out a fight!​

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we were horrified when a property we were THIS CLOSE to buying had deed restrictions that wouldnt allow more than 10 pieces of poultry and no swine! so we moved on. the next property had restrictions about what kind of fencing you could put up. it took us over a year and we finally found somewhere that there were no deed restrictions. we couldnt believe it.​

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