I need to sell my coop - how much?

[vehve]

There's about $500 in the coop. The automatic chicken door was nearly $200 alone. I'd thought of asking $700 but that seems a big number. Not unreasonable then?

Maybe put in a normal door and sell the automatic one separately, might be hard otherwise. But you can always lower the asking price if no one is interested.

 

[21hens-incharge]

We had a big "sit down and come to Jesus" talk with the neighbors. Turns out they are passive aggressive and felt they couldn't say no to our face and so said yes instead,

I guess your neighbors are very very lucky not to have me as a neighbor. With what they did it would have only made me dig my heels in deeper and stand my ground.

I have always been a live and let live kind of person. One of the few in this world I suppose that does not care much what goes on on the other side of the fence, so long as it is law abiding.
I have a dog hater as a new neighbor. She should have looked through the chain link fences and seen all the dogs in the area BEFORE buying the house. Mine barked at a fox at about 5:45 am one time and she called the cops. The next weekend I tore down a 2 year old chain link fence and put up a privacy fence. Only after I told her to get bent.
Never could stand folks telling other folks how to live.

I am sorry you have to give up the chickens.
LOL my cranky neighbor must just be beside herself every time one of my hens lays an egg.

Hugs for your kiddos and perhaps a bunny would not be a bad idea.

edited to add...
oops missed the part about the allergies. No bunny then.

 

[candr01]

I guess your neighbors are very very lucky not to have me as a neighbor. With what they did it would have only made me dig my heels in deeper and stand my ground.
I have always been a live and let live kind of person. One of the few in this world I suppose that does not care much what goes on on the other side of the fence, so long as it is law abiding.
I have a dog hater as a new neighbor. She should have looked through the chain link fences and seen all the dogs in the area BEFORE buying the house. Mine barked at a fox at about 5:45 am one time and she called the cops. The next weekend I tore down a 2 year old chain link fence and put up a privacy fence. Only after I told her to get bent.
Never could stand folks telling other folks how to live.
I am sorry you have to give up the chickens.
LOL my cranky neighbor must just be beside herself every time one of my hens lays an egg.

Hugs for your kiddos and perhaps a bunny would not be a bad idea.

edited to add...
oops missed the part about the allergies. No bunny then.

Thanks for the support. I find that autism takes a lot out of our family, what with all the dr appts and therapy we do every week. He is starting kindergarten in the fall so lots of scary changes already going on. We decided that we could fight but just don't have the bandwidth to add that kind of tension to our lives. Things are hard enough without worrying if the police are going to show up and scare my kids (that's how we found out they were not happy about the chickens - they filed a complaint with the city and a uniformed police officer turned up at my door!). Sometimes the good guys don't win, ya know? Life lessons and all that. Wish you were my cousin though, would have loved to have kept the chooks and handed the neighbours over to you .

 

[21hens-incharge]

I really do understand your position. I am sorry they feel the need to act like spineless jellyfish and do things in an underhanded and nasty way.
I would have gladly taken them on for you. LOL to court we WOULD go. I just don't get people who can't say what they mean to your face.

 

[vehve]

I wish you strength with dealing with your situation. You should check out your regional thread on BYC and post the coop for sale there, you might find someone who could put it to good use. And like I said, selling the automatic door separately might be easier, it's easier to ship further away than a coop as well, so your potential market is bigger.

 

[candr01]

Awww, thanks. Chicken owners are the best! I don't even know you guys and you're already so much nicer than my neighbours One upside is that there is a local school for special needs kids who is interested in the girls. They are trying to get administrative approval but finding it hard over the weekend, but I think it would be wonderful for the chickens to go there. The whole recycling aspect of taking kitchen scraps and turning them into eggs and fertilizer through the chickens is a great lesson for kids and adults alike. Maybe the girls always had a higher calling than just being our pets.

As for the door, unfortunately to get it to fit in my short coop I cut it down by 7 inches. It works beautifully but has literally been sawn in two. Good idea though, I might still find someone who could use it in their little coop like me. Will look into the regional thread too. Thanks for the tip.

 

[vehve]

Awww, thanks. Chicken owners are the best! I don't even know you guys and you're already so much nicer than my neighbours One upside is that there is a local school for special needs kids who is interested in the girls. They are trying to get administrative approval but finding it hard over the weekend, but I think it would be wonderful for the chickens to go there. The whole recycling aspect of taking kitchen scraps and turning them into eggs and fertilizer through the chickens is a great lesson for kids and adults alike. Maybe the girls always had a higher calling than just being our pets.

As for the door, unfortunately to get it to fit in my short coop I cut it down by 7 inches. It works beautifully but has literally been sawn in two. Good idea though, I might still find someone who could use it in their little coop like me. Will look into the regional thread too. Thanks for the tip.

I would think it's the mechanism that is the valuable part, not what's attached to it. Hopefully you get lucky and the school will take everything off of your hands.

 

[Pecanny]

My dad was at an auction last Saturday and a coop went for $12. Not sure what it looked like, but it would have taken a good sized traile to load and haul according to dad. I'd have bought it in a heartbeat if I had been there for that little dough, and then made the necessary predator modifications if needed..

 

[candr01]

Thought to post an update since everyone here has been so supportive.

We have decided to keep the girls - huzzah! After all the drama and misinformation swirling about I decided to just go door to door and speak with all the neighbours to hear their thoughts. Perhaps not surprisingly, noone really cares much about whether we have chickens or not. And then once they found out they were for our special needs son they became quite supportive. As a general policy they don't approve of blanket chickens in the neighbourhood but when it comes to our three girls they don't much care so long as they aren't a nuisance (of course) and generally our conversations ended with hugs and 'good lucks' and 'hope it helps Ethan's. The neighbour who lodged the complaint neglected to present the whole story (like, 3 chickens, not 20; always kept in a coop, not running through the streets; not looking for blanket chicken coverage across entire neighbourhood, just these 3 to help special needs child etc etc) and just got people whipped up without understanding our intentions or the facts. So after speaking with everyone and after some hard thinking we decided to keep the girls and see how it goes.

I wanted to thank everyone here for your support and kindness. I felt like we were being bullied which, even 20 years out of high school, still does not feel good and with all we have going on in our lives I was so close to giving them up. But you guys were encouraging and supportive and you were right. It is important to fight the good fight and not give in, even when it comes to small things like chickens. So thank you. I love BYC <3

 

[vehve]

Nice to hear that the story has a happy ending, or middle at least. Hopefully your son will respond well to the chickens. My godfather has a son with special needs, so I have a small window to seeing what kind of obstacles such families have to climb. He is now 20 years old, and has been practicing living on his own in a facility which offers low level assistance, with good results.

Reading your story again reminds me of an ad I saw at our university's bulletin board. It was a family with a 8 year old son who has Aspbergers. They where looking for an engineering student who studies HVAC, since that was the only subject their son really had a passion for. The eight year old kid could apparently discuss HVAC systems (with a high level of expertise) for hours. I somehow found it endearing.

Good luck with your chickeneering, and hopefully the neighbor won't give you any more trouble.