How do I stop the Egg Song?

[ChickenLegs13]

Tellum like I told ny wife one time when she was complaining, that's the sound of money!
(unlike her constant squawking, which is just useless noise)

 

[FalconsNest]

Excuse me??

Tellum like I told ny wife one time when she was complaining, that's the sound of money!
(unlike her constant squawking, which is just useless noise)

 

[HnkyDnkyZZFarm]

They will get less dramatic about it all as egging becomes the norm. We have a couple that do a song and dance routine when they're bored or lonely. They definitely respond to routine. If one has decided 5am is time to rise and shine and get your booty out to let her out, you could try ignoring her till a decent hour - if something gets results, animals tend to repeat it expecting the same. She'll get louder before she gets quieter if that's the case though and your neighbors wo t love that. I might try putting her up separately for a couple nights and see if you can break the habit, but if it's an egg thing rather than a calling the food and door lady thing, your chances of changing it are slim. My bunch will also get loud if someone is being a box hog. If I close up the boxes for a day, it throws off the "usual" egg schedule and some won't lay at all for a day or will have a random egg drop somewhere in the yard later in the day. I don't know how much coop/run space you have though. We have a fairly large one, so they have plenty of room to chill out for a few minutes so we aren't getting up at the crack of dawn because the chicken said so. We also didn't have to worry about neighbors in a subdivision cursing our names every morning if we didn't turn off the chicken alarm either though

 

[azjustin]

Every day, my chickens start singing the egg song at 6:30 AM. My mom lets them out, they shut up, and one of them goes to lay an egg - but when the other one needs to lay, the start screaming again. My parents won't let me keep them if they continue to be this loud; how do I get them to stop? (after they lay they're quiet again, but one of them lays really early in the morning when nobody is up)
Oh, and we live in the city where hens are legal, but we're afraid that the neighbors will complain.

6:30 AM seems awfully late for a neighbor to complain and actually have a reason for someone to get involved. 5 AM in my limited experience seems to be the norm for noise ordinances. You should check yours.

That being said, you still want to keep the neighbors happy! Free eggs are always a good deal.

Our ladies start their songs around 6, but there's not too many people that would care. Most everyone here considers a 6 AM wake up call "sleeping in".

Good luck.

 

[csaylorchickens]

Excuse me??

I was thinking the same thing

 

[cabinchicky]

Yes free eggs are a big help with neighbors. There is no way to make them quite besides getting rid of them. We are not in town but our neighbor is close enough to walk to in2 minutes.They moved in a two years after my fowl obsession began. They watch chicken TV now! But they also hear egg song, 3 roosters crowing off and on all day,warning calls from my bantam rooster, the quail plus my loud as heck Guineas. Also gunfire when we target practice, loud bikes and a truck. Thank God I get along with them!

 

[luckydawn]

Good Morning, I take a different approach to this. The chickens will sing, to me less offensive than a barking dog but hey, I like chickens. My approach to these types of issues is not to train the chicken but to change the surroundings. Fabric muffles sound. I don't know your setup so I can't make suggestions specific, but my approach is how to keep the chickens comfortable and muffle the sound. Does that approach give you any ideas?

 

[Coram]

They mean the idea (fantasy/romance) of keeping the chickens compared with the reality (birds behaviour) etc. That is all.

 

[Coram]

It's a turn of phrase.

 

[SCOUT123]

Good Morning, I take a different approach to this. The chickens will sing, to me less offensive than a barking dog but hey, I like chickens. My approach to these types of issues is not to train the chicken but to change the surroundings. Fabric muffles sound. I don't know your setup so I can't make suggestions specific, but my approach is how to keep the chickens comfortable and muffle the sound. Does that approach give you any ideas?

I keep them in a dog cage thing that is quite large (I use the largest type, 48") It's lined with hardware cloth and I use blue tarp to cover them up at night. But wouldn't fabric suffocate them?