Hey all, new member here with a long story, and urgent need of advice
Immediate issue: I have 3 hens, 2 of which are crowing now, sometimes incessantly. While there isn't any noise ordinance in my borough for this, I would like to curb this behavior, it is annoying when it happens and I don't want to be the bad person on the block.
I live in rural, Amish county, Pennsylvania, farms and farm animals are a way of life here and entirely expected. My mother-in-law lives next to an apartment complex where one of the tenants decided to put up a chicken coop at the back of the property line under a tree, next to a corn field. From what I was told there were initially 6 chickens, and a piglet living in this coop (attached image). At some point the critters escape and 3 chickens were killed somehow with the owner no where to be found. Some of the neighbors rounded the hens back up and put them in the pen and took the piglet in (piglet has found a home). While visiting the in laws about a week or two after this incident we went to check on the chickens and found them with no food, or water, in the heat. One of the hens was laying on her side with seemingly an injured wing, unable to really do much. We got them food and water and the other two hens started drinking and eating and appeared fine. They were constantly stepping on the sick chicken. We knew we couldn't leave her there, so we put her in a box and took her home. The in-laws would continue to feed and water the hens after this.
We brought the hen home and named her Rex (we were told they were roosters, but this was incorrect), so her new name became Rexa. After giving her several syringes of water she seemed to come back to life and lived in our sunroom for another week and a half or 2. We'd let her walk around the kitchen and investigate the cats; gave her all sorts of food and snacks and bought her Purina Layena Pellets and cracked corn(?). She seemed fine. We took her to a vet to get her wing looked at and everything else and she received a clean bill of health. The vet wasn't sure of the breed but asked if I had heard her crow and I hadn't, so she was confident that Rexa was indeed a hen. The only real consistent difference we could see between hens and roosters were spurs, and none were on Rexa.
This hen bonded with my wife in a day or two, quickly finding a spot to nest on her shoulder for awhile, and she seemed to have a personality. The original intent was to rehab her and find a home her, and her two sisters could go to. Being an animal person I became attached to her as well, she was docile, would be nosey and investigate things we did, allowed us to handle her, etc. She would dominate the cats when roaming the kitchen, so we thought....... "why not?". We knew the borough ordinance allowed us to raise chickens so we thought we could try it, plus free eggs are nice.
So.. we got a coop and brought the two sisters home. Almost the same one as the chickens were living in before we found them. I put up 4 foot chicken wire fencing around the coop for them to roam around in during the day when we're not around; otherwise we let them roam the yard if someone was outside watching them. Shortly after, the neighbor popped his head over the fence to let me know "chickens can be fun pets especially for kids and quieter than dogs, but that this was technically his fence and didn't want the coop stuff attached to it; I had stapled some chicken wire to keep the possums/skuns from coming in under a hole he's not filled). Two days later I received a letter from the borough that the coop was too close to the property line and it needed to be moved.
Fine, fair. I had told the neighbor I was going to move it after our short discussion when the weekend came. That Friday came and I took some time off and was planning on moving the coop. The wife and I were outside that morning talking about the chickens and whether or not they were ready to lay eggs or just being goofy, and one of the neighbors (unsure of guy's wife or his neighbor) was outside. We went to leave to get some more fencing to move the coop and noticed someone had placed two, white, (still cold) store bought eggs on our front lawn. So, the neighbor battles have begun.
Then the crowing started. We thought it was the largest one, Ren, who looked kind of roostery but found it out was the smallest one, Roxy, it was once in a while, no big deal but in the past week it's gotten worse where it's almost non stop, and now it's also Ren. So I have two hens (no spurs) randomly crowing throughout the day, sometimes without end. What I've noticed is they usually stop when someone goes out to see them and I feel like we've been Pavlov'd into coming out to visit when they do this, but it's not practical.
We did some research that hens can do this in for a variety of reasons (pecking order, hormones, spontaneous sex change, etc), but it has to stop. I mentioned earlier there's no noise ordinance, and certainly the neighbor is sort of noisy during the day with wildlife, motorcycles, dogs barking, birds and such but I don't want to be a terrible neighbor and fear for the ladies' lives right now. I found a really nice local farm sanctuary that told me they couldn't take the hens in, even with a few hundred in donations to cover their costs, so now I'm in a tight spot. I want to guarantee their safety if rehomed so that process is going to take awhile. We really love Rexa, she's been "peoplized" and behaves differently when we're outside with them. She doesn't crow, that we've noticed. Also, no eggs yet from anyone.
What can I do? My concern is that two of them are crowing, this isn't typical from what I've read so I'm not sure if any approach would be different. I don't have access to a rooster. The best I could do would be to try and "break" Roxie by sticking her in our sunroom for a few days, then Ren, but that introduces some issues.
I really don't want to give them up, as an animal rescuer, also on the principal of the matter with the neighbors, if they would just stop the crowing. Please help!
Immediate issue: I have 3 hens, 2 of which are crowing now, sometimes incessantly. While there isn't any noise ordinance in my borough for this, I would like to curb this behavior, it is annoying when it happens and I don't want to be the bad person on the block.
I live in rural, Amish county, Pennsylvania, farms and farm animals are a way of life here and entirely expected. My mother-in-law lives next to an apartment complex where one of the tenants decided to put up a chicken coop at the back of the property line under a tree, next to a corn field. From what I was told there were initially 6 chickens, and a piglet living in this coop (attached image). At some point the critters escape and 3 chickens were killed somehow with the owner no where to be found. Some of the neighbors rounded the hens back up and put them in the pen and took the piglet in (piglet has found a home). While visiting the in laws about a week or two after this incident we went to check on the chickens and found them with no food, or water, in the heat. One of the hens was laying on her side with seemingly an injured wing, unable to really do much. We got them food and water and the other two hens started drinking and eating and appeared fine. They were constantly stepping on the sick chicken. We knew we couldn't leave her there, so we put her in a box and took her home. The in-laws would continue to feed and water the hens after this.
We brought the hen home and named her Rex (we were told they were roosters, but this was incorrect), so her new name became Rexa. After giving her several syringes of water she seemed to come back to life and lived in our sunroom for another week and a half or 2. We'd let her walk around the kitchen and investigate the cats; gave her all sorts of food and snacks and bought her Purina Layena Pellets and cracked corn(?). She seemed fine. We took her to a vet to get her wing looked at and everything else and she received a clean bill of health. The vet wasn't sure of the breed but asked if I had heard her crow and I hadn't, so she was confident that Rexa was indeed a hen. The only real consistent difference we could see between hens and roosters were spurs, and none were on Rexa.
This hen bonded with my wife in a day or two, quickly finding a spot to nest on her shoulder for awhile, and she seemed to have a personality. The original intent was to rehab her and find a home her, and her two sisters could go to. Being an animal person I became attached to her as well, she was docile, would be nosey and investigate things we did, allowed us to handle her, etc. She would dominate the cats when roaming the kitchen, so we thought....... "why not?". We knew the borough ordinance allowed us to raise chickens so we thought we could try it, plus free eggs are nice.
So.. we got a coop and brought the two sisters home. Almost the same one as the chickens were living in before we found them. I put up 4 foot chicken wire fencing around the coop for them to roam around in during the day when we're not around; otherwise we let them roam the yard if someone was outside watching them. Shortly after, the neighbor popped his head over the fence to let me know "chickens can be fun pets especially for kids and quieter than dogs, but that this was technically his fence and didn't want the coop stuff attached to it; I had stapled some chicken wire to keep the possums/skuns from coming in under a hole he's not filled). Two days later I received a letter from the borough that the coop was too close to the property line and it needed to be moved.
Fine, fair. I had told the neighbor I was going to move it after our short discussion when the weekend came. That Friday came and I took some time off and was planning on moving the coop. The wife and I were outside that morning talking about the chickens and whether or not they were ready to lay eggs or just being goofy, and one of the neighbors (unsure of guy's wife or his neighbor) was outside. We went to leave to get some more fencing to move the coop and noticed someone had placed two, white, (still cold) store bought eggs on our front lawn. So, the neighbor battles have begun.
Then the crowing started. We thought it was the largest one, Ren, who looked kind of roostery but found it out was the smallest one, Roxy, it was once in a while, no big deal but in the past week it's gotten worse where it's almost non stop, and now it's also Ren. So I have two hens (no spurs) randomly crowing throughout the day, sometimes without end. What I've noticed is they usually stop when someone goes out to see them and I feel like we've been Pavlov'd into coming out to visit when they do this, but it's not practical.
We did some research that hens can do this in for a variety of reasons (pecking order, hormones, spontaneous sex change, etc), but it has to stop. I mentioned earlier there's no noise ordinance, and certainly the neighbor is sort of noisy during the day with wildlife, motorcycles, dogs barking, birds and such but I don't want to be a terrible neighbor and fear for the ladies' lives right now. I found a really nice local farm sanctuary that told me they couldn't take the hens in, even with a few hundred in donations to cover their costs, so now I'm in a tight spot. I want to guarantee their safety if rehomed so that process is going to take awhile. We really love Rexa, she's been "peoplized" and behaves differently when we're outside with them. She doesn't crow, that we've noticed. Also, no eggs yet from anyone.
What can I do? My concern is that two of them are crowing, this isn't typical from what I've read so I'm not sure if any approach would be different. I don't have access to a rooster. The best I could do would be to try and "break" Roxie by sticking her in our sunroom for a few days, then Ren, but that introduces some issues.
I really don't want to give them up, as an animal rescuer, also on the principal of the matter with the neighbors, if they would just stop the crowing. Please help!
