Noisy Chicken

[Rachael Ellen]

I know chooks make noise and it's inevitable and sometimes over nothing but a plastic bag blowing across the lawn but I have 1 chicken getting waaaaay out of hand with her noise making.

I keep 2 chickens in the suburbs. They are in a large coop and have access to fresh water and pellets and shade and areas to dust bathe and plants to stalk around.

One of them is an absolute angel. You'd hardly know she was there, save for when a neighbour's cat jumps the fence.

But the other one... well. Her name is Leni and from about 7am till 6pm when they are let out into the yard for a couple hours before dark, she will squawk relentlessly in around half hour intervals all bloody day. The ONLY way to get her to stop is to let he out of the coop but when I do that, they both get bored within half an hour and end up sitting under the verandah pooping on the bricks. The instant they're put back, she's back to squawking.

I don't know what to do with her. I've tried giving them plants to play around with but they're too quickly destroyed. I've tried giving them a plastic container with holes where treat food falls out when they kick it around. They lost interest.

I'm worried we're going to get complaints soon and it's driving me up the wall. She's just bloody annoying. This has been happening probably about a month now really badly I've had them both for over a year without many problems.

 

[N F C]

What breed of chickens do you have? Judging from our mixed flock, some breeds seem to be louder than others. For example, our EE is so quiet, we call her the Stealth Chick, lol. Our Black Australorps are the loudest (which is funny, a lot of people say they are quiet birds but ours are definitely not).

You may need to re-home your noisy girl but that's going to make life difficult for your remaining one. Birds don't like to be alone, they are flock animals. So that would mean you either re-home both of them or add a couple more chickens to your flock (and go through the integration process).

Good luck to you.

 

[Rachael Ellen]

I've no idea what breed they are. They're a cross between 2 breeds and neither breed was a road island red though they look similar. They're both the same.

Do they just get louder in the summer maybe?

I'd hate to rehome her so I hope it doesn't come to that

 

[bobbi-j]

Sounds to me like she's got you trained. She has figured out that if she makes noise, you'll let her out to shut her up.

 

[Rachael Ellen]

I'm a parrot owner so well aware of learned bad behaviours. I will only let her out when she's being quiet for a while to reinforce that good things come to patient chooks. I made my observation based more on the fact that when she's out she never squawks. I realise I should have mentioned that.

 

[SusanPC]

I was re-reading a book I bought when I first started thinking about starting a flock of my own in my backyard. It states that chickens are very quiet except for roosters. Well... my Barred Plymouth Rock hen is anything but quiet. She loves to cluck loudly and squack at the top of her long periods of times many times throughout the day. She may not make the ear piercing cry of a Rooster, but there is no denying that I have chickens in my backyard to any of my immediate neighbors. Also, when they lay, all my girls (4) sing the egg song at least as loud as a rooster crowing for several minutes. So I hear your pain. I think how noisy chickens can be depends on the individual chicken. If the sound is going to cause you not to be able to have chickens, then you might need to swap out your noisy girl. I don't think there is any way I could train or discourage Lulu from being loud. If it was a problem, I would consider removing her. Just be aware, by adding chickens, you might get another loud one (or more!).