Official BYC Poll: Have Your Neighbors Ever Complained About Your Chickens?

[Tclloyd0812]

We are lucky to be in a very rural area outside of our small city's limits. We have a good amount of acerage and neighbors have a lot of acerage too so we rarely ever see them. The only time we ever really see our neighbors looking at our chickens is when they are riding by and they stop and drive slowly to look at the chickens that choose to free range in the front that day, and of course they stop and take pictures of our emus that love attention and run to the gate at the front. Other than that, we rarely see our neighbors, they are too busy with their chickens and other animals to be concerned with ours, and we don't care about their animals either. Someone that lives a couple acres behind us has a rooster that loves to crow at our roosters while ours have a crowing contest! Its actually entertaining to hear! Lol.

When we lived and Texas and had an HOA (of course), we didn't have a rooster but any time we butchered chickens we got complaints and were posted on Facebook, even though we did it in the back on the 2 acres we had at the time.

I was always raised to mind my own business, and I really could care less about someone else's chickens and what they're doing with them unless they wanted to mistreat them (I'm not talking butchering, I'm talking neglect or abuse them).

The ONLY time I have ever put my foot down was when we lived in Texas and my in laws had a rooster and the rooster was "mean" and they ran it over (purposely), hit it with 2×4s (purposely), starved their chickens, never collected eggs and let them rot in the nest boxes, and beat the rooster to a bloody pulp until he died. I just don't think that's right. We will butcher chickens but we try our best to give the best quality of life we can to all of our animals, no matter their outcome. If you want to mistreat animals you may as well not even have them to begin with! After speaking to my in laws about it and how disgusting and disgraceful they were being with the chickens, they finally gave the ones left away to a better owner. If they weren't family I probably would have been a Karen and reported them for how the chickens were treated, and don't even get me started on the goats they had.

 

[Solanacae]

One of my neighbors loves watching my chickens. He actually asked when we are getting a rooster because he loves hearing them crow. He grew up in rural Brazil and heard crowing all the time. One of my juveniles from this spring is a cockerel, and I’m on the fence about keeping him. At least I don’t have to worry about him complaining, but the city I live in has a noise ordinance and other neighbors may not live the noise so much when he starts crowing.

 

[M-H-Fielding]

Keeping backyard chickens is a wonderful thing to do. It has great experiences and lessons that you can learn. On top of that you get eggs out of your pets and your eating healthier. However, your neighbors might not share your enthusiasm for poultry. So in this week's poll, we would like to find out: Have Your Neighbors Ever Complained About Your Chickens?

• If you answered yes, can you tell us how you solved the problems?
• If you answered with no, did you do anything special to prevent angry neighbors?

Please place your vote above, and elaborate in a reply below if you chose "Other".

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Further Reading:

• Top 10 Things To Consider Before Buying Chickens
• Chicken Laws & Ordinances (And How To Change Them)

(Check out more Official BYC Polls HERE!)

I had a young roo who had the annoying habit of jumping over the fence and into the neighbor's yard, and every morning she would call me and tell me to come get my bird. It got so bad as to where I had to lock him up ALL THE TIME! Even if I just let him out when I was out there feeding, he took off and jumped the fence. It was my fault for owning a pesky rooster, but her super low fence didn't make anything easier.
I finally just got rid of the roo.

 

[The Coop-D-etat]

Absolutely do more than just tolerate them, my neighbors LOVE them. They even like them coming in their yard and picking up birdseed under their feeders. They even like when they come up to their porch to investigate. They have some tomato plants up in front of their house unprotected mind you...those heathens came and ravaged them. Even though I was horrendously apologetic they said they didn't care at all since they have/had plenty more than they needed. They even watched my dogs and chcikens while I went away for the weekend for a co-workers bachelor party.

I always apologize for the rooster's crow even though in their words "I love it reminds me being back on the farm" I still insist.

I give them eggs and baked a cheesecake for them cause it's their favorite! I'm very very grateful.

They even are wanting to get chickens now! I'm just doing my job and helping push the chicken agenda

 

[MTKitty]

My neighbors either have chickens of their own or are deer rabbits and coyotes.

The chicken-owners won’t complain. The deer don’t get to whine because they’ve spent the last two summers helping themselves to my garden. The rabbits nosh in my front yard away from the chicken yard.
I am a little worried the ‘yotes might take matters into their own ... um, paws. So, I’ll spend time working to keep the chickens from becoming dinn- ... a nuisance.

 

[The Coop-D-etat]

The ONLY time I have ever put my foot down was when we lived in Texas and my in laws had a rooster and the rooster was "mean" and they ran it over (purposely), hit it with 2×4s (purposely), starved their chickens, never collected eggs and let them rot in the nest boxes, and beat the rooster to a bloody pulp until he died. I just don't think that's right. We will butcher chickens but we try our best to give the best quality of life we can to all of our animals, no matter their outcome. If you want to mistreat animals you may as well not even have them to begin with! After speaking to my in laws about it and how disgusting and disgraceful they were being with the chickens, they finally gave the ones left away to a better owner. If they weren't family I probably would have been a Karen and reported them for how the chickens were treated, and don't even get me started on the goats they had.

Wow! I'm so sorry that people's giant noses were trying to make a scene out of you guys for doing something that has been done for thousands of years...

And good for you...that is just an absolute pathetic way to treat any living thing. Even if it's family that shouldn't be tolerated by any means, I'm glad you stepped up and said something. There is no Karen in this situation. That is just plain common sense when witnessesing such a crude method of husbandry...if you can even consider it that.

 

[Swbertrand1]

Don't you just LOVE people who move into the country and then complain about the sounds of the country -- roosters, farm machinery at dawn, chainsaws, etc?

Can't stand folks like that! They just suck the fun out of life... :-(

 

[Swbertrand1]

I love dogs but honestly they can be some the most annoying animals on the planet. Somehow because they’re dogs they get a pass where chickens don’t???!! I have a neighbor with such dogs. 4 to be exact. They screech and Yelp at all hours. Yes he hears my chickens. I give free eggs. All he has to offer is free dog turds!

Not much of a trade, is it? :-\

 

[Ascholten]

This is a great idea! The farmer's market and feed store are great places to meet chicken lovers. I may advertise my incubator

I don't know if they do this everywhere or if it's just a southern / rural thing but the TSC out here, every weekend people set up in the parking lot, especially on Saturdays with their livestock for sale, you'll see chickens, ducks, geese, piglets, rabbits, you name it. Great place to chat and meet people. Also you might want to check your local craigs list too, they typically have monthly 'chicken roundups' where people gather to swap stuff too.

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

Our state is booming and there are zero acres left for under $100-200K/acre in our area. We wish we'd bought more, but neighborhoods full of expensive houses are sprouting everywhere and it still can't keep up with demand. We are saving our virgin forest for posterity at this point.

Ya no $%it. Amazon warehouses going up all over. Today it just totally pissed me off. A corner of land, it's a KKKN FLOOD ZONE !!!! Every time we have a big rain, it all runs down there and floods the road 2 days later. Ive lived here oh I want to say 14 years, and Ive seen that road shut down 4 or 5 times because it's under 2 feet of water. Not to mention the block of land surrounding it 20 or so years ago it was a Rice Paddy!! That's how much water they get.

PLUS, there used to be dumps all over around there
PLUS, right next to it is a Septic Tank company who dumps the $%t out in the fields to dry out and compost. (guess where all that rainwater runs off to???). It's also a huge horse / donkey / mule pasture too.

The yellow signs are out, they are rezoning it PUD, and some other zoning, etc. Meaning it's been bought up and they are building houses there. So you are putting houses in a flood zone that runs through a septic field? Someone needs to be buried IN that septic field for that, IMO that's just criminal, those poor people who buy those houses, only to find out a few years later what happens during a heavy rain (Florida, can you say HURRICANE anyone???)

Hindsight is always 20 / 20. If I knew when I bought my house, oh it's DEED restricted, they won't cant build around it, they HAVE to leave the trees up. Little did I know all it took was to mafia bribe one of our corrupt jacksonville politicians to get that zoning changed in a jiffy.

What happened to the housing bust?
What happened to all these foreclosed houses?
WHY do we need so many new ones, what happened to all those old ones?
Especially with this millennial mindset of Ill just live with mom and dad until they croak and then get their house so I don't have to work to get one myself?

The way the economy is heading now anyways, how many of these buildings are going to be left half built / abandoned?

Aaron