Help! Loud, loud, loud urban backyard hen!

[mkearsley]

I have the same problem with my hens. Bo is the head girl. She's an early riser & squawks & clucks until the other three girls are up & out of the house. I've tried locking them up until later, but Bo & Sexy both squawk inside the coop! "shooshing" her used to work, but not anymore. Now that all four girls are laying, they seem to take turns squawking during the day (the "egg call"), and they also take turns on the nest. Fortunately, none of mine have really gone broody, yet.....

 

[xnor]

I have two chickens: An older, Buff Orpington I'm not sure how old, at least 4, Elsie, and a two year old Black Australorp, Cobra.

I'm experiencing something very similar as well and I really have to address it soon as I'm concerned about my neighbors [I live in the city], my roommates, and my own sleep.

In the past few weeks Cobra has developed a horrific very loud call in the morning. This morning she woke me at 5:30. The birds have a rather large run, plenty of food, but Elsie is broody. I'm going to try to break Elsie out of her brooding, hopefully this will also solve Cobra's morning noise issues, because if this lasts too much longer I fear that I'll have to get rid of Cobra.

I'm curious to know how things work out for others here.

I've been thinking about acquiring two more juvenile chickens. I am wondering about integrating them with Cobra and Elsie, but I'm figuring that I should address the problems at hand first.

 

[Twiggy411]

No one might like what I've done. After trying giving my hen, Buff Orpington, treats to make her quiet, 4 minutes later she would start squawking again. I'd go out and give her more treats to quiet her down. Finally, on the 4th time, I just picked up a long stick and shook it at her and told her to shut up, and I made noise with the stick by banging it on the gate to their yard. This did startle her and she shut up. She was quiet in the morning for the next couple of days and started it again. So I banged on the gate again and shook the stick and told her to shut up. She has been quiet in the mornings since.

 

[Mingming]

No one might like what I've done.  After trying giving my hen, Buff Orpington, treats to make her quiet, 4 minutes later she would start squawking again.  I'd go out and give her more treats to quiet her down.  Finally, on the 4th time, I just picked up a long stick and shook it at her and told her to shut up, and I made noise with the stick by banging it on the gate to their yard.  This did startle her and she shut up.  She was quiet in the morning for the next couple of days and started it again.  So I banged on the gate again and shook the stick and told her to shut up.  She has been quiet in the mornings since.

Haha! I've got three Roos that I'm not allowed to have (hopefully they'll all be placed soon!) and I started with treats too but after 1/2 hr they did the same thing... So I used the stick method too. I hope when the boys are gone the girls won't start up