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

[BYC Project Manager]

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".

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!)

 

[LizzzyJo]

My neighbors don't just tolerate my hens, then love them They babysit them when I'm away and the kids love to come over and feed them grapes. This is very helpful when my hens sometimes migrate over to their property chasing frogs

 

[PippinTheChicken]

My neighbors love the chickens (they even find the crowing contests my roosters have funny!). They are currently looking after them while I'm on holiday since, they used to own a farm, and they are really enjoying it.
According to the other neighbors, they can't even hear the roosters.
I give the neighbors eggs sometimes.

I'm still being cautious about the roosters and hoping no one complains

 

[Isadora]

We are rural, so even though my chickens free range, the neighbor is far enough away that my chickens don't go over there. My guineas though, due to their love for wandering, ended up in my neighbors yard a few times. He said they didn't bother him, but we still put a fence along the road to keep the guineas on our property.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I had one (kinda, he's a relative to the people who actually own the house and has just been staying with them) that tried to brung it up (rudely, not just to problemsolve) but he quickly stopped when I pointed out his hounds are just as pound and that at least my birds -unlike the 4 hounds he has- don't run in the road and stop short in front of cars.

 

[Isadora]

don't run in the road and stop short in front of cars.

There are several dogs around us that do this. It's so annoying

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I Get dogs bark too, but these hound bellow, all night and all day. They're like the Bumpusses from Christmas Story

There are several dogs around us that do this. It's so annoying

 

[3KillerBs]

My current flock isn't loud enough for my neighbors to hear given the size of rural lots. I'm trying to head off potential rooster complaints as Ludwig starts to mature with gifts of eggs.

I was fortunate with my in-town rooster. The neighbor on one side had grown up on a farm and liked to hear him -- bringing his grandchildren over to see the chickens when they visited. The other neighbor figured that if we didn't mind their muscle car they didn't mind our rooster.

I think it helped that Marion was a Brahma with a deep-toned, resonant voice rather than a shrill voice.

It also helped that I'd deliberately sited the coop on a line between our heat pump and the neighbor's heat pump as a "white noise" shield.

 

[Tuch baluch]

My neighbors have not complained yet, but they might later.

 

[Ascholten]

One of the hens flew over the fence and into the neighbors yard. He was amused, he came over and told me, getting that witch was not going to happen, so I said xxx it and let her run, hoping a cement truck would come her way. She wandered his yard, and some other yards, then a bit later at night, hopped up on the fence and kind of walked on the fence around the corner and looked at the coop for about ten minutes then flew back into the yard This is what he told me the next day as he laughed, and said it was good entertainment. From my POV, I think since she could not get back in the coop, she flew back on the fence, because that is where I found her roosting after it got dark and went and fish netted her, and plopped her back into the coop and locked it up.

Even months later, when I bring him eggs, he brings it up, the day she came in the yard and looked around and laughs. I was not amused because a few of my neighbors are real crinkle tarts, and could cause trouble if they wanted.

Aaron