Cystic fibrosis help!

[weaverst]

Hi,
My neighbour has seen our new chicken coop go up, as our girls are almost ready to go outside. She has come knocking as they have a child with cystic fibrosis and are worried about our chickens. She says she will be phoning the hospital to seek advice as she was told birds are a big no so wants to speak to the environmental team. Will we be able to keep our girls?? She seemed calmer after I said it’s just the three of them. I’ll be devastated if we need to rehome. They will be in a coop in our garden at all times and using dust free bedding. We are happy to take precautions to help the situation but I really don’t want to get rid of my girls!

 

[Coops Dad]

Do your neighbors have any leverage to force you to get rid of your chickens ie: HOA, city/county ordinances? If not, maybe you could mollify them by moving your coop to the property line farthest from them. Or tell them you were torn between hogs or chickens and felt chickens would be much less smelly and disruptive.

 

[LaFleche]

Hello and welcome to the BYC community!
With just three chickens living in your coop and garden they should not cause problems for your neighbours child.

Although I understand the neighbours worry and their wish to protect their child from anything potentially harmful, there always will be wild birds around too, and of course other potential risks they will not be able to control.

 

[LaFleche]

Will we be able to keep our girls?? She seemed calmer after I said it’s just the three of them. I’ll be devastated if we need to rehome.

If keeping chickens on your own grounds is within your rights (check zoning etc.), there should be no reason for you to rehome your birds just because someone in your neighbourhood claims to have a child having health issues.

 

[weaverst]

Do your neighbors have any leverage to force you to get rid of your chickens ie: HOA, city/county ordinances? If not, maybe you could mollify them by moving your coop to the property line farthest from them. Or tell them you were torn between hogs or chickens and felt chickens would be much less smelly and disruptive.

On our county Council website it just says you must ensure that by keeping chickens you are not unreasonably interfering with the use and enjoyment of neighbouring properties. So I suppose they could push it if the health care professionals do get back to them and say it’s a problem. I’m hoping that’s not the case though

 

[weaverst]

Hello and welcome to the BYC community!
With just three chickens living in your coop and garden they should not cause problems for your neighbours child.

Although I understand the neighbours worry and their wish to protect their child from anything potentially harmful, there always will be wild birds around too, and of course other potential risks they will not be able to control.

This is absolutely what I was thinking. Thank you for helping put my mind at ease! I hope they reach the same conclusion or at least allow us to put precautions in place to keep their daughter safe and us to still have our girls.

 

[LaFleche]

To further dispel your fears you may want to have a look at the CF forum where the chicken topic has been discussed by others, some of them still keeping their own chickens despite suffering from CF themselves

https://forum.cysticfibrosis.com/threads/chickens-and-cf.24570/