What can I do to make my chickens quiet?

[Lily97]

We live in a neighbor hood and our chickens get very noisy especially in the early morning. Is there anything we can do to keep them quieter?

 

[missnu01]

Not that I know of...my chickens are pretty quiet except when they are laying eggs..and it seems as though egg laying is a community event...One chicken goes in the next box and starts cackling the "I'm laying an egg song" While all the other chickens freeze up and answer with the "yes you are laying an egg song"...it's pretty funny....Hen will cackle rooster will cackle, other chickens will chatter...hen will cackle, rooster will cackle, other chickens chatter...I like it. I always know when I have an egg done. Lol.

 

[nok13]

mine start at about 6:00 as it is starting to get lighter earlier now in the morning and they keep it up steadily til about 7:30.... by 8 they are just making the usual happy hen chuckling sounds... i actuallyt hought one of my hens thinks she's a rooster... i gave two hens to someone in our kibbutz, his house has a whole valley below and he can keep noiser animals, but i took one noisy one out, so now the others are being super noisy... actually, it sounds annoying and noisy to me because it is such an insistent call, and ihear it stronger then my downstairs neighbhors. (windows closed since its winter, and only mine are open a bit)... waiting for summer, wondering what they will say (the chickens and the neighbhors.
at that hour anyhow we have tractors going past under our backyard, and the sounds of the chicken pellet truck when it comes to fill the silos (horrible vacuum noise that goes on for two hours), i can hear the mechanical feeders rolling in teh coops; dogs start up barking also around that hour, in general 7:00 is an acceptable time in our place for morning noise except on saturdays (shabbat) when people sleep in.
fortunately, other neighbors have started saving vegggies for the hens (their kids like to feed them) and i give everyone fresh eggs, so that is a salve for irritable neighbhor syndrome in the mean while. one neighbhor even told me they wouldnt mind if i had a rooste r(we used to be an agricultural village anyhow, jsut the newcomers are animal noise senstivie), although not all the neighbhros would agree, so not going that route.
we also have the mating cats when its the season, and the falcons start up with their nesting in our rain gutters, so i guess the clucking chicken noises have become part of the background, hopefully...

 

[missnu01]

We worried about the chicken noises bothering the neighbors, until we realized all the neighbors had chickens, but we didn't really ever hear any chicken noise over the sound of the neighbors dog barking.

 

[hannahgiselle]

I don't think there's really anything you can do to make them be quiet. They don't have the mental capacity to be trained like a dog does. Sure, you can condition them to go roost at certain times and things of that nature, but you can't train them to not make noise. They just can't learn that way. Their clucking and such is their way of talking to each other. It's important for the structure of the flock and for safety. Most hens ordinarily aren't too noisy, mine only really make a ruckus when they're trying to lay an egg but someone else is in the nest box, or when a squirrel gets into their run.

 

[Lily97]

Sorry it took me so long to post this! We put a radio in our coop on a timer and its been working great! They make noise in the afternoon sometimes, but they are usually very quiet in the mornings. I just wanted to let you guys know

 

[metachick]

oooh! I'm going to try that! 6am is so noisy in our coop. We are raising in a neighborhood as well. They want to get out of their run and free range and won't stop making noise till they get out.

 

[nok13]

mine have free entry to the coop, and food is always available but the three early hours of themorning are a cacaphony; we moved our adult boys to a new area (not our home, but freinds of hubby); but his girls have started to talk, mine always talk, we have one pekin/cochin who growls for hours; the leghorns also complain very vocally ... we now have two nesting boxes for 6 hens (mine), but not sure why they are so very very noisy just when our neighbhorhood is getting up and going to work (so everyone hears them), and now one woman is at home maternity leave, thankfuly she hates open windows and prefers a/c... but thsi morning they made so much noise i turned on the hose and sprayed their yard... that kept them quiet, pecking around for quite awhile in the damp earth... i will try to set up treatrs also.... it must be bordom... it could also be one of the feral cats, but its not usually noise of warning but just loud grumbling..

 

[aggiemae]

I don't care for windowless coops but using shutters or blockout curtains on the coop windows will give you an extra hour or so.

Also I let our chickens out of the coop/run at the same time every day and they don't start fussing until right before that time

 

[feather13]

Lily97: I empathize with your issue! I have a small wooden coop inside a large dog run. My five chickens are extremely loud, so I used to shut the coop door at night and let them out in the morning (this kept the early morning screaming to a minimum). But there are now seven chickens and the two newbies get pecked mercilessly if I coop them up. I live in a fairly urban neighborhood and am worried about the racket the chickens make. A neighbor has a rooster, but it's nowhere near as loud as my girls. They have plenty of space, food, water and shade, so I don't think they're unhappy. They are just really loud. Any advice? I like the radio suggestion, but their daytime ranging area is pretty large and I don't think they'd hear the radio. Thanks!