Anyone keeping chickens secret from a HomeOwners Association?

[Sunny the Hippie Chick]

Im not hiding my pets from a HOA.. But I do live in an apartment.. And we are allowed to have one dog accourding to our rental agreement.. We have asked to have a second dog. But never paid the pet deposit for it.. Right now we have 4 chihuahuas, one cat, and 19 button quail.. Ohh I would be in trouble.. Hopefully with in the next year we will be in a different place and have what ever we want in our home.. Well almost... LOL..

 

[lunkerchicken]

I am part of a HOA. My immediate neighbors are all aware of what I am doing and are fine with it. Most of them will be at my door when the eggs start coming. As far as the HOA and the rest of the neighbors, they are not in the know. I am sure it is part of some neighborhood bylaw (that chickens are not allowed) but the covenance are loaded with a bunch of BS and at some point or another, each one of my neighbors have broken some bylaw, so they should have nothing to say.
I hate owning your own home and being told what you can or cannot do with your property - drives me nuts!

 

[aberfitch]

I will NEVER live in a HOA NEVER NEVER NEVER! I hate them. Its like a government within a government. Kinda scary. I don't think they should exist, but if you must have them then all they should have control over is how high your grass is and cleanliness. Not what animals you keep. That is just crazy. I don't know why one would even choose to live in a neighborhood with one of those.

 

[chicken blondie]

a bio tech facility. that's priceless

 

[chicken blondie]

we discovered a way to quietly drown out any cluckings and noises--have a semi-quiet radio near the coop. make sure it's not going to disturb your neighbors with music going 24/7, but just enough for some background noise over the cluckings. we found this out when my hubby built anew coop and got bored so plugged in a radio. it totally covered their murmurings.

However, some birds are just noisy. Before she was killed by a hawk, we had one french copper maran that squawked as loud as a rooster. we are down to 4 birds and 3 are super quiet. we are moving to an area with HOA restrictions too and i'm debating keeping the 3 quiet ones. I also have a rabbit living in the coop with them and they all love each other. plus the birds eat the rabbit turds and keep it clean.
good luck!

 

[BBQJOE]

I read somewhere that chickens are a descendant of dinosaurs.

Tell them they're not chickens, but actually mutated dinosaurs, possibly related to the Pterodactyl.

 

[piakaven]

I am curious to find out how did this pan out? I live in a city that has banned chickens and bees, and I really would love to have few chickens, but live in a tiny lot and the neighbors would be really close...

 

[annasoults]

I live in an area of the county where all sorts of livestock are legal - cows, goats, chickens, etc., but our homeowners association says horses are the only non-household pet they'll accept in our subdivision. It specifically says no poultry of any kind. My HOA is like most - full of stuffy angry people who just want to make other people's lives miserable. We have no intentions of ever moving from this neighborhood.

I see all these other chicken owners on this forum who are fighting anti-chicken laws and here I am in a pro-chicken part of town with an anti-chicken HOA. I'm getting my first chicks in the 1st week of April and we have a coop already built that says "Rabbits" on it in case anyone peeks over our fence...LOL...we hope it'll throw them.

Everything I've read about getting chickens says to talk to your neighbors first - well since I have to hide this from the HOA, the less people that know about my covert coop, the better. My neighbors on one side actually had chickens, but they got caught (I assume). The don't speak English and one day the hens disappeared

. They don't have a large privacy fence like we do so I think that's why they got caught. (I'm only assuming they got caught).

Anyone else have this situation? Where they're hiding chickens from a HOA? We have almost 2 acres with 6-foot privacy fencing around the whole thing so I'm hoping we can pull this off!!

Any advice for me? I need quiet birds that aren't going to fly into a neighbors yard so I hope I've picked the right breeds!!! (Americauna (probably generic EEs though), BR and either RIR or buff Orpington)).

Thanks all!!

Kate

 

[annasoults]

I live in an area of the county where all sorts of livestock are legal - cows, goats, chickens, etc., but our homeowners association says horses are the only non-household pet they'll accept in our subdivision. It specifically says no poultry of any kind. My HOA is like most - full of stuffy angry people who just want to make other people's lives miserable. We have no intentions of ever moving from this neighborhood.

I see all these other chicken owners on this forum who are fighting anti-chicken laws and here I am in a pro-chicken part of town with an anti-chicken HOA. I'm getting my first chicks in the 1st week of April and we have a coop already built that says "Rabbits" on it in case anyone peeks over our fence...LOL...we hope it'll throw them.

Everything I've read about getting chickens says to talk to your neighbors first - well since I have to hide this from the HOA, the less people that know about my covert coop, the better. My neighbors on one side actually had chickens, but they got caught (I assume). The don't speak English and one day the hens disappeared

. They don't have a large privacy fence like we do so I think that's why they got caught. (I'm only assuming they got caught).

Anyone else have this situation? Where they're hiding chickens from a HOA? We have almost 2 acres with 6-foot privacy fencing around the whole thing so I'm hoping we can pull this off!!

Any advice for me? I need quiet birds that aren't going to fly into a neighbors yard so I hope I've picked the right breeds!!! (Americauna (probably generic EEs though), BR and either RIR or buff Orpington)).

Thanks all!!

Kate

Obviously no guarantees; I am in the same situation. I made sure my coop is not higher than my fence. I keep them in my home at night and late morning so the roosters do not offend neighbors. My plans are to use plants, trees and foilage to distract from the coop and the chickens. The only way they can figure out if they are back there is if they are looking over my fence and the fence is almost 7 foot. I am sure HOA are constantly looking for people to be breaking rules. I just like to think that telling folks what they have in their yard is government over reach. I do the best I can to not force my neighbors to deal with my chickens, smell, flies, and noise. No one complains so I do not have the HOA breathing down my neck yet.
That's my solution. Good luck.

 

[Backyardchickenlover89]

I suggest you to follow the law you don’t want to get a lawsuit or for the police to drop by, calling them rabbits isn’t really going to throw anyone off unless their aliens and have never seen chickens or heard chickens in their lives before, I’m pretty sure we all have gone to a farm as a kid, you need to ask yourself these questions chickens are the least expensive pet that you can own, usually $10-20 bucks for a good one, eggs cost about $2-3-4 dollars is it all worth it? are you doing it for the eggs or do you actually like having chickens, it’s a lot of hard work, and if the answer to you loving chickens is yes then I suggest you to get 3 hens only - Good luck