Been crying all afternoon, thoughts on solution?

[gapeach717]

So I have some really miserable people in my life who love to make life suck for others. I am in love with my chicks and often spend hours out of my day just siting in with them and petting them and feeding them and holding them or just watching them be silly month old chickens.

My happy place came crashing down this afternoon.

Now, please, I know I took a chance going against Hoa and technically it is more the city ordinances that got me, but I am broken hearted and cried til I gave myself a migraine and I am paying the price for being an outlaw. Now I need advise.

1.) I CAN have chickens on my property in my city....but bc of this crappy house in a crappy neighborhood that I married into, I canNOT have them living in my yar bc I don't have 76 feet from my property lines to keep them. I canNOT have them in the yard at all per my covenants, but seriously like every house in all 4 joined neighborhoods breaks covenants on a daily basis....so I plan on making life hell for a lot of people in the near future.

2.) I have til Monday to get the chickens gone.......HOWEVER, whatever is in my HOME cannot be regulated by Hoa nor the city. So.....with great sadness, I have about 10 places I can rehome my babies forever or for as long as I need, but, I am not ready to give up just yet!!!

So....


What if I turned part of my garage into a coop/pen and kept my best 6 chicks that I am 99% sure are girls. And let the rest go. Then during the day I can take them out to the old run for a while or let them free range in the back yard with me supervising them (back yard is mostly private) and try to still keep some of my babies?? Could this work!?!

I dont want to loose my little ones when i worked SO hard for this!!! I am simply broken hearted and cannot tell you how hard I cried in the coop earlier (until shadow pecked my lip which made me laugh....then cry harder) I don't want to say goodbye to them! I *want* to win this battle somehow!

I cannot believe I have dogs barking til 3am daily, parties, fireworks, kids hitting my car with bats, drunk neighbors screaming at each other in the street, and yet I am getting shut down for tiny baby chickens!!!! W.T.F????


Please lend me your advise!!

 

[teach1rusl]

Do you know who complained??? It seems odd that someone complained at this point (they're still chicks, right?).

If you know and get along with your neighbors, perhaps you could talk to one or two of them about waiving the 76ft. thing for your coop??? Maybe if you explained the situation, and assured them that you were only keep 6 of the females, that the coop wouldn't be an eyesore and would be well maintained (plus that you'd be happy to share eggs when you had extras), they would be willing to sign a waiver saying the coop placement is fine with them???

 

[blueberrychickens]

I'd sure as heck be converting the garage if I could! Keep those babies till the HOA comes knocking on the door w/ fines/fees. I'm sure you could "hide" them as long as they don't crow!!

 

[chestypuller]

boy its like nazi infested germany over there in georgia!

 

[gapeach717]

One of the women on the Hoa board was my friend on fb, honestly between my regular every day life, dog rescue and cross posting, and the chicks, I forgot she was on there. This weekend there was a neighborhood garage sale and when I went to one house ere was this cute little chicken set I thought would look adorable in my china cabinet. Anyhow that bi%#} was working that sale with her friends and when I picked them up you would have thought I let a fox into the hen house!!! I swear to God I heard the word chicken 45 times in a 5 min conversation!!! Very snotty trying to be cutesy kinda thing. I left feeling very uneasy about the whole thing. I went home and checked my fb and she was still my friend. So I left her hoping I was just being over suspicious bc I was an outlaw. Well today this all went down and whoever sent the info over copied over parts of my fb right up until yesterday afternoon!!!! And I flipped out and screamed and ranted on my page. An hour later I checked, and she was no longer a friend!!! So yes, I know who it is. Since this happened I have now said that all the chickens are leaving, and I am miserable. My friends have all come to my rescue but I want to keep some of my girls!!! I have cried so hard this afternoon!! I am miserable at the thought of losing them!! A few gone and all the boys I can deal with, but some of my babies I would just be a mess!! I cannot believe how much I love them already!!! ;(

 

[chestypuller]

well theres only one thing left to do.

Egg her house and cars.

One of the women on the Hoa board was my friend on fb, honestly between my regular every day life, dog rescue and cross posting, and the chicks, I forgot she was on there. This weekend there was a neighborhood garage sale and when I went to one house ere was this cute little chicken set I thought would look adorable in my china cabinet. Anyhow that bi%#} was working that sale with her friends and when I picked them up you would have thought I let a fox into the hen house!!! I swear to God I heard the word chicken 45 times in a 5 min conversation!!! Very snotty trying to be cutesy kinda thing. I left feeling very uneasy about the whole thing. I went home and checked my fb and she was still my friend. So I left her hoping I was just being over suspicious bc I was an outlaw. Well today this all went down and whoever sent the info over copied over parts of my fb right up until yesterday afternoon!!!! And I flipped out and screamed and ranted on my page. An hour later I checked, and she was no longer a friend!!! So yes, I know who it is. Since this happened I have now said that all the chickens are leaving, and I am miserable. My friends have all come to my rescue but I want to keep some of my girls!!! I have cried so hard this afternoon!! I am miserable at the thought of losing them!! A few gone and all the boys I can deal with, but some of my babies I would just be a mess!! I cannot believe how much I love them already!!! ;(

 

[chickmashnoon]

What kind of chickens do you have? I don't know how your hoa is worded or what their reasoning is, but if you have banties, one could argue that they are hardly livestock(which upsets people on a hoa) and are closer to someone having a couple of very quiet parrots. I'm sorry that this has gone badly, but you had to know you ran the risk of having to get rid of your babies if you knew it was going to upset others. On the other side of the coin, sometimes the only way to destroy a silly rule is to break it. Good luck, and lots of hugs!

 

[Nicole01]

We built our coop inside our garage and put the run right outside. Our coop is 12x4x9 room and the run is 22x5x5. It's worked out very nice. We can lock our girls up safely at night behind a steel door. Our run has a cover and side shading. We have a door outside the run for free range access. Since we have cold winters, we fully insulated the coop and inside is almost sound proof. We were able to put electricity with a light and a radiator heater.

Here is our run finished. We actually put plastic up, so they had access all winter long.

Our coop

 

[gapeach717]

My husband is all for egging and beating and anything else right now! He has dealt with me crying a lot today.

And yes, I knew I ran a risk, I just didn't think it would be like this. I figured I would get to at least hear their big girl voices before I had them taken away. So sad. my mom who was against the idea at all at first has gotten very close to the chicks and offered to let me stash them there at her house for a few days, or give me some money down for my chain link run for the garage to start converting ASAP. Time is running and I have to figure something out! I have EEs, barred rock, delawares, speckled Sussex, one Dutch bantam, and Cochin.

 

[gapeach717]

That is lovely Nicole, but I am forbidden from altering the structure of the house. :rollseyes: