Living next to chickens

[Gymbunny]

Hi everyone,
I know this site is predominantly for people who have chickens. But I'm hoping you might be able to help me or at least give me a bit of insight.
My neighbours got chickens about a year ago. They had 7, but now its five because they left them roaming the garden at night and foxes got them.
Now I'm working from home I can hear them constantly. It's not really loud like a dog barking, but it's all the time and driving me slightly mad. There is always a low level grumble from them and periodically they all go mental. Maybe they are laying an egg or something is in their garden that scares them? I'm not sure.
I've been putting off speaking to my neighbours. She is nice enough. He is a misery. But we've had issues with them before with their dogs barking late at night, they got a crazy security light that floodlit our bedroom and stayed on all the time. They don't maintain their fence. They have a rusty caravan in their drive. And I'm so loathed to go and complain about something else. For a bit, they were laying in the garden and we were getting egg shells and detritus in our garden but they stopped that when we mentioned it (after asking if we were sure they were chicken eggs!)
Recently I did send a text, a gentle one. Suggesting that they might have recently got louder and is there anything that might help? She said sorry that they were bothering me but offered nothing else by way of solution.
They offer us and the other neighbours eggs, but I'd much rather buy the whole street eggs and get rid of the chickens.
I there anything else I can do? I just wish they hadn't got chickens. The noise makes me want to cry when I'm trying to work and it's always there. We live in a quiet residential road in the suburbs but the chickens make me not want to go in our garden. We didn't say anything last summer when they were waking us at dawn but I'm dreading the early morning next year already.
Any ideas, thoughts or insights would be appreciated.

 

[DickMidnight]

what are the local laws in your area? are they legally allowed to have chickens? are their birds all hens or do they have roosters too? usually there are more restrictions placed on having roosters

do the birds stay in their yard, or do they ever come over to yours?

the answers to those questions will give us all a better idea of the situation you’re dealing with and what steps can be taken to remedy it.

i think your first step is a frank conversation with your neighbors. explain the annoyance, and ask if there’s a possible compromise, like keeping the birds contained to a coop/run at the other end of their property.

if they’re completely uncooperative, then your only real option is to hope they’re keeping chickens illegally and reporting them.

 

[DobieLover]

The first and most important question to ask is, are the chickens even permitted? The unfortunate answer to the problem of constant chicken noise is, chickens talk all day. The "going mental" part is more than likely when one has laid or is planning on laying an egg. They get very loud when they do that.
If two were taken by a fox was that during the day or night? Do they have a coop and large run the birds could be contained in? What size lot do they have?

 

[Gymbunny]

what are the local laws in your area? are they legally allowed to have chickens? are their birds all hens or do they have roosters too? usually there are more restrictions placed on having roosters

do the birds stay in their yard, or do they ever come over to yours?

the answers to those questions will give us all a better idea of the situation you’re dealing with and what steps can be taken to remedy it.

i think your first step is a frank conversation with your neighbors. explain the annoyance, and ask if there’s a possible compromise, like keeping the birds contained to a coop/run at the other end of their property.

if they’re completely uncooperative, then your only real option is to hope they’re keeping chickens illegally and reporting them.

Thanks for getting back to me.
Unfortunately I can't see anything that prevents them from keeping chickens. No roosters. The birds generally stay in their garden. A couple of times we've had them in our garden and called the neighbours to come and get them.
Maybe asking them to move the coop to the other end of the garden would be a good plan.
Thank you so much!

 

[DickMidnight]

Thanks for getting back to me.
Unfortunately I can't see anything that prevents them from keeping chickens. No roosters. The birds generally stay in their garden. A couple of times we've had them in our garden and called the neighbours to come and get them.
Maybe asking them to move the coop to the other end of the garden would be a good plan.
Thank you so much!

if they’re being kept legally, then your options are truly limited. id dig in to your local laws and make 100% sure of that. maybe there’s a limit on the number of chickens they can keep.

as far as moving the coop, it won’t do much if the birds are allowed to freely roam the yard. the only solution would be an enclosed run that the birds were kept in all the time.

 

[Gymbunny]

The first and most important question to ask is, are the chickens even permitted? The unfortunate answer to the problem of constant chicken noise is, chickens talk all day. The "going mental" part is more than likely when one has laid or is planning on laying an egg. They get very loud when they do that.
If two were taken by a fox was that during the day or night? Do they have a coop and large run the birds could be contained in? What size lot do they have?

I'm afraid I cant find anything to suggest that the chickens are illegal. The two unfortunate chickens were got by foxes during the night. Probably because our neighbours were too lazy to round them up before bed. They have a coop and are then allowed to roam the garden during the day. It's not a big lot but if the coop were at the other end, their house might muffle some of the noise. thanks so much for your input.

 

[Gymbunny]

if they’re being kept legally, then your options are truly limited. id dig in to your local laws and make 100% sure of that. maybe there’s a limit on the number of chickens they can keep.

as far as moving the coop, it won’t do much if the birds are allowed to freely roam the yard. the only solution would be an enclosed run that the birds were kept in all the time.

I was afraid you'd say that. It's just typical from our neighbours. They aren't horrible people but they are so inconsiderate. I don't even dislike chickens. I just don't want to live with them. :-(

 

[DickMidnight]

I was afraid you'd say that. It's just typical from our neighbours. They aren't horrible people but they are so inconsiderate. I don't even dislike chickens. I just don't want to live with them. :-(

it’s worth the conversation, if only for your peace of mind.

a few years ago when we still lived in new york, our neighbor had a hot tub in their yard right up against the fence that divided our properties. they used it a lot, were noisy, sloshed water all over the corner of our yard, and ruined my wife’s garden. i spoke to them a few times about it, but since they weren’t really doing anything wrong there wasn’t much i could do. finally i offered to move the tub, at my cost, to a better spot in their yard. it cost me $1,200 but i never dealt with the problem again.

if it’s reasonable for you, and they’re resistant to the run idea, you can always sweeten the deal by offering to pay for some, or all, of it.

 

[aart]

They have a coop and are then allowed to roam the garden during the day.

"Garden", I assume is the same as what we in the US call a 'yard'?

Curious where in this world are you located?
If in the UK, I believe there is a lock down for poultry, they have to be in a run with mesh to small to allow wild birds in.
Just a thought.