How Many Chicken Owners Live in Urban Neighborhoods?

bcmama

Crowing
13 Years
Jul 12, 2012
368
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My Coop
My Coop
I was wondering how many of us are out there that live in urban/suburban neighborhoods (less than 1 acre) and have chickens? How do your neighbors deal with your girls? I just started and still have chicks in the brooder and we are currently finishing up our coop, but I am getting nervous. Maybe I only chose to see the positives to having hens and didn't want to see any negatives. I thought I was okay as long as I didn't get any boys, but after reading about how noisy the girls can be, I am worried that I will bother my neighbors (and I have a real grumpy one behind me).

Just looking to see what urban folks are doing to keep the peace. I don't want any nasty-grams from them. :)
 
very urban here. for the most part, the crows in the neighborhood make more noise than my 4 girls. We did have a recent problem with the top of the pecking order changing and the new and old top were vocally duking it out. I put the old top in the house in a dog crate for 3 days till she was hoarse and it was much quieter when she returned to the yard.. I returned her on a week day hoping the neighbors would all be at work before she started up again. today being satursday, all was back to normal quiet. I noticed who I thought would be the new top of the pecking order chasing others off of prime treats so I think the order has occured as anticipated.
 
Quite suburban here. The only loud noise is the egg song. I would agree that its about the level of a loud crow.
 
I live right in town in the north end of Austin TX and my neighbors have never mentioned a word about my birds. I sold my large fowl girls (as well as my Silkie cockerel and Polish cockerel) so the morning and evening cluck-clucking is less than before...I have four Modern Game bantams (including a crowing cockerel) and one australorp pullet outside, while my Seramas live inside. Even with a larger flock, they were never loud enough to be a problem. The neighbor with several small yappy dogs has more noise in their yard than I have ever had.
 
I live in a neighborhood, but have an acre. My neighbors bring their kids by to see my chickens and ducks. Chickens aren't loud until you have roosters. My neighbors tell me they don't hear mine.
 
I have a bit over an acre, but its filled. We live in an old place (1876) with a barn and garage which are very usefull for the stealth bird operation. LOL My neighbors are pretty cool with the birds, as long as they don't walk over and poo on their sidewalks. (I had a little troupe of geese wonder over and do that once this summer) I made sure the fence around the back was good, and have others basically keeping all the birds on the back half of the property behind the house, garage, and barn. I have 10 chickens (2 silkies, 3 california whites, 3 black sex-link hens, 1 oddball roo, and 1 bantem barred rock), many ducks (Kahki Campbell, Ancona, Indian Runner, and Peking/Giant Peking), 10 geese (5 sebastopol, 4 buff Dewlap Toulouse, 1 Gray Dew. Toul.), 7 turkeys (1 white for Thanksgiving, 3 bourben red, 3 midget white), and coturnix and button quail. (and a partridge in a pair tree). Everyone fits. Some get alternating days to wonder in the front yard. Mine small birds (quial/chickens) are kept in mobile cages that I move about the yard. The ducks and geese are divided by varieties, and the ducks are divided amoung them, so sometimes they get the great grass (grain at night) but no swimming, only drinking bens that day- and the others have the great pool but only a small goose yard, and so they have to be fed grain that week. We do lots of readjusting and moving birds here. But, I do have as many as I want. (or as many as I want to do chores for) I sell lots of duck eggs to our asian community. And, I make extra money by doing specialty incubating of duck eggs for them too.
 
I live in a village and we have an acre lot. We have some awesome neighbors that don't mind that we have chickens at all but we have one miserable wench who complained to the village about our chickens (of course, she waited until I was all done building my coop & run to register her complaint). She lives three houses up the street but has an L-shaped lot that backs up into our lot. Her pool is in that L part and when she's out in the pool, she has a direct line of site into my yard and my chicken coop. Unfortunately for her, I can legally have 50 chickens at once and there is nothing she can do about it.

Never mind the fact that she made me so mad with all of her complaining that I fenced off my large garden area with orange snow fencing just to irritate her. About 10 days ago, I took 7 roo's to the processor thinking that would make her happier because they were crowing on and off all day long between the 5 that were crowing - but nope. She still sits in her pool and heckles the chickens, then gets mad when my older roo crows (I have two - my BO is 5 months and my BR is only 3.5 months). Last week I was outside and I had let my chickens out of their run into a fenced in area to find lots of bugs to eat and Nugget escaped under the snow fencing in the one weak spot I had. She handed her 7 year old a broom and had her chase him while swinging the broom at him. I was livid, not only because of her actions but because Nugget was still on my property! How dare she try to let her child attack my pets? I bet if I chased her dog with a shovel in her yard, she'd be pretty ticked off!

They have their house up for sale and I really wish it would sell already - but unfortunately, it's way over-priced in a saturated market and I don't see them going anywhere for a while.....They just moved in last year and claim to be moving this year because "country living isn't for her". Whatever. The rest of the neighbors like the chickens and you would think that being a vegan, she'd love my vegetable garden.....but she hates that too.

You can't please all of the people all of the time. I gave up on her a long time ago......she's just miserable! I hope your miserable neighbor isn't cranky about your flock - but if she is, she'll just have to get over it if you can legally have chickens.
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I told my neighbor to stop obsessing about the chickens - they are here to stay and completely legal - her fretting over them was just making her miserable and nothing was going to change but her attitude......if she chose to change it. Yeah.....she still doesn't like me or my chickens (or my vegetables......).
 
I have a very small fenced in backyard. I have a koi pond and many gardens so it is kept nice. I have my coop in the back of the yard near my veggie garden. In order to have them I had to have neighbors sign, so they know I was going to have them. Now that they are here my neighbors think its cool to see chickens in my yard, I have three hens!! They are happy they are out ea ting bugs. My girls stay in my yard so they are not pooping in anyones yard or patio, or chewing up anyones plants or gardens. I haven't had a problem. They are not noisey at all and everyone keeps asking when are the eggs coming!! LOL If you keep the coop clean, and the chickens in your yard there should be no complaints. All that you want to do anyway!! I am happy I went thru all I had to do for my town to get them, don't want to cause any problems. Happy chicken owner in Raritan NJ There are pictures of my yard on my profile page
 

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