How crazy would we be to put our coop & pen right next to our bedroom?

[NoelC]

Umm, yes we are newbies! Turns out the best place logistically to put our coop & pen for just 3 hens is attached to the exterior wall outside our bedroom. I'm guessing we would be crazy to consider this, but we really don't know for sure, and it's otherwise a great place to put them, unless of course squawking will become a show stopper. Give us your wisdom!

NoelC

 

[Judy]

Noise, flies, odors, dust all could be problems. You can deal with odor and flies fairly well but they will make the noises they make. If the prevailing wind is away from your window it could make all the difference. Many on here would not do it, or regret it if they did. I love my chicken's noises, keep lots of pine shavings in there, and would do it in a heartbeat.

Not sure even I would do it if I had a roo; much as I love a good crow, it has quite a bit of volume, unlike most hen noises.

 

[teach1rusl]

With only three HENS (rooster would be another story), I don't think it would be a big deal. I really enjoy listening to my girls. And they sleep during the dark hours, so when you're sleeping there would be little/no noise. AND you'd be able to hear if there were ever predator problems. Plus it would give you incentive to keep their coop very clean

 

[Olive Hill]

If you have odor in your coop/run that is so strong you can smell it through an exterior wall of a home, you shouldn't be keeping chickens to begin with. As for noise, they sleep during the nighttime hours, same time you do. They may wake earlier than you, if you're the type to sleep in, but you'll likely get used to it after a while and learn to sleep right through it. My free-range gaggle of geese sleep about 20 feet from my bedroom window (a window that is right next to my head as I sleep) and they make a ruckus every night at least once. It used to wake me, but not anymore. Only if it's an out of the ordinary kind of ruckus do I wake now. The normal honking I sleep right though. And geese are MUCH MUCH louder than chickens ever even thought about being.

 

[NonnasBabies]

First off

If all you'll have is 3 hen's I don't see where you'll have a problem. How well insulated is your house?? The only time I hear my chickens is when my rooster is on the back porch crowing!!

 

[Fred's Hens]

Flies, lice, mites, odor and dust. Yup. Those are the bonuses.
Of course, they wake at 5 am and get to talking and such just when you want to sleep in.

But seriously. No way. Absolutely no way you want the poop and the flies right out side your bedroom, really.
Or, maybe you do, I don't know.

 

[clairabean]

I guess it depends what bothers you. Flies. Smell. Sounds. Mess. Poop flung up the walls of your house.

Sounds alone would not bother me. I love the sound of my rooster, Gingy, in the morning. Lifts my spirits even before I get up . My husband's spirits, not so much, though.

 

[NoelC]

Wow I love the response time!

Well, novices that we are, I'm not thinking flies & poop & odor will be a big deal because we are very focused on very regular maintenance, but I could be misguided here too! The coop we have has a slide out tray and we plan to change the pine shavings out every two days, and the pen will be roughly 6' x 10' on a concrete slab and will be 6-7' tall so we can walk into it comfortably, and our bedroom is actually above this so we would look down out the bedroom windows to see the top of the pen roof. The pen is primarily to keep predators away from the coop instead of a place for the hens to live outside their coop, more or less. Our house has 6" well insulated walls. We truly hope to let the hens out of their pen every day to wander our 1 acre property, and so to me it doesn't seem like odor & flies will be huge, but I could be mistaken on this.

Clearly Fred doesn't want any part of this, and the other posters seem ok with the noise overall, a little less so with generic chicken mess!

Keep your thoughts coming it will help us make a good choice. Thanks bunches!

 

[mrsengeseth]

ours are within 16 feet of our bedroom window. we don't have a rooster, granted, but we never hear our girls. The smell is something we don't have a problem with as we clean often, just like you plan to. DE will keep the flies and other bugs at bay. We have a routine with it. We smell dirt, but not dirty if that makes sense. Our run is a dirt base. Smells way better than the dog area, would much rather the chickens near our bedroom windows than the dog runs, hahahahahaha.

 

[sourland]

Well, it would be great for predator control and protection. You could jump out the bedroom window and choke anything that is after the chickens. Those early wake up calls from a batch of happy hens might get old quickly.