Can my Neighbours make me get rid of my chickens??

[louchicks]

please help!

We live in a farming county but where we live it is on a lake and there are cottages around. I don't know why but a lot of them really have it in for us because we have chickens. The girls are well cared for, not noisy and the one rooster we have is in all night and only goes out at 10am. I keep the place real clean too. My wife recently asked if i was worried about them complaining and signing a petition to make us get rid of the chickens and taking it to the county.

Could they really do this? If chickens are legal in your area can a petition to the county do anything? I am worried

are there any preventative steps I should take? Should I call up the offices and ask if such a thing is possible?

2 miles each way from us there are beef farms so it is not like this is cottage country, there are many many farms in the immediate area.

I would feel so alienated and hurt if people did this.

 

[WingingIt]

I'm no lawyer, but I'd think that if it's legal for you to have chickens there then the only way they could force you to get rid of them would be to report you for not taking care of them and have them seized. Which shouldn't happen as long as the animal officers show up and can see that you DO take care of them so the report was baseless and just bad blood from the neighbors.

 

[HEChicken]

As long as you are legal, I wouldn't worry TOO much. I suppose there is the possibility they could influence your local government to make changes to the ordinances so that chickens are no longer allowed, but usually when a change like that is made, anyone already keeping chickens would be grandfathered in, so it would only affect someone wanting to get started after the new ordinance went into effect.

 

[ekemily]

have you tried talking to your neighbors and seeing why they don't like your chickens? Are you in a neighborhood type setting that has covenants? Do you know what the zoning is for your house? I live in a rural area, but our city limits are very strange. They can change from street to street and sometimes only include one neighborhood out in the middle of nowhere...

 

[EweSheep]

Nah, I would not worry about it unless the neighbors start complaining about it. Be sure to have a copy of the ordiance of that subdivision where you can have some chickens.

 

[louchicks]

thank you very much for the welcome this looks like a really busy forum, I am going to be sticking around forsure.

I sure hope it is not possible. now that I am calmer about thinking about it it doesn't make sense because if you can legally have chickens anywhere in this county then you could find neighbours at anyones place that could complain. I could live on a farm and have a complaining neighbour.

But there must be at least 4 different people who are complaining (from rumours i have heard). Heavens knows why they would be so upset about harmless little birds. it makes me feel very, very unwelcome. I even gave two neighbours that came by free eggs and I would do it for anyone who came to see the chickens. I really hope it is not them complaining. now I think they came here just to snoop and not to be friendly. :*(

 

[PineappleMama]

Agree with the others. Check your codes (and have the info onhand) and if they're legal then just keep on keeping on. Sounds like you have a clean and safe environment with plenty of food and water for them and that's about the only things that can get an (legal) animal taken.

*places bag of flaming poo on neighbor's front step*

 

[desertdarlene]

Welcome to BYC! Sure, it's always possible that you might have problems with your neighbors in regards to noise abatement, etc. But, since you are in a farming community, I wouldn't worry about it. I think the best thing you can do is to keep in touch with your neighbors as it will promote neighborliness. If chickens are allowed where you live, then you have the law to back you up and it would have to be something really egregious for your neighbors to be successful in making you get rid of them.

 

[louchicks]

wow thank you all for your replies! Where we live it is unpopulated in the winter. It is a quiet road with only one other person living on it full time (they have no problem with the birds). We have had two neighbours come talk to us and they said they had no problem with the birds but I am not so sure if thats true or if they were snooping. We are on a big enough property that our immediate neighbours are not right on us. The space between the chicken coop and my right hand neighbour would be at least 100 feet from their property line. To explain better in the summer the cottagers come but there are some people living here year round. The cottagers are the ones who are complaining. they went to our local property association (not a legal entity) and complained enough that they included it in the yearly handout saying that "Unfortunately regardless of amount of complaints chickens are allowed to be kept here". So there have definitely been complaints just not to US.

we are allowed in our county up to 100 laying chickens. We only have 11. There are no divisions or funny business that would mean we are not allowed, I called before buying birds to make sure.

I guess all I can do is let them whine and moan. boy am I glad none of you think they can do this. I would be so crushed.

 

[Wifezilla]

Looks like you need to order a few more!

Don't listen to me. I am a troublemaker