Viewing 31 posts - 1 through 31 (of 31 total)
  • Clucking hell…..
  • sotonkona
    Free Member

    A few weeks ago I thought I’d finally lost my sh*t as I started hearing chickens clucking all the time at home. I live in a small inner city terrace house with a tiny garden (strip of concrete), so all signs were pointing to me losing it.

    However, when my dog started barking at a similar time a few days later, I knew it wasn’t just me…. it appears one of my neighbours seems to have acquired some chickens, although I can’t see them, I can hear them all day and so can the dog, and thankfully my wife can now too!

    Last night a very wily fox obviously clocked the chickens as well and somehow made it through the maze of gardens, various high walls and fencing into our garden (I am visualising this in a Wes Anderson, Fantastic Mr Fox way). It started making a load of strange fox noises, probably in it’s attempt to get to said chickens or call his mates over. This noise then set my dog barking at 2am, then 4am and 5:30am this morning, which started a cacophony of various dog barks in the neighbourhood and the baby crying next door….etc. happy Tuesday 🙁

    Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know if you are actually allowed to just keep chickens wherever the hell you want? No issue with the chickens per se it’s more the rats, foxes and noise associated with having them in pretty close proximity…. but most importantly ours and the dogs sleep/sanity!!

    submarined
    Free Member

    There are sometimes covenants that restrict it on newer houses, but, at the risk of being an absolute stw arse (and I know I’m about to start a flame war, but hey ho)
    Why does one person have more of a right to keep, say, a dog, than another does to keep chickens?

    I know that the ‘egg song’ can be a bit noisy, but it’s usually brief, and only once a day per bird, and obviously cockerels are another matter, but I’d much rather have a gentle clucking than a barking dog if I’m being honest.
    Full disclosure: we’ve kept chickens for 10+ years (and I’m not saying you have a barky dog)

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    hels
    Free Member

    It sounds like Mr Fox might sort this out before you can!

    sotonkona
    Free Member

    @submarined it’s a valid point…I guess chickens could certainly be deemed a domestic pet by some. I grew up around farms and with chickens, was just surprised given the proximity to all the other houses. I have known chickens to cause an issue with vermin, generally attracting it, especially rats drawn to the their food etc.

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    I’ll swap you two howling dugs upstairs for your nice gentle chickens.

    greatbeardedone
    Free Member

    @hels

    I think it’s ‘foxy loxy’☺️

    Just don’t look up!

    submarined
    Free Member

    Oh yeah, I’m not going to disagree about the rats, in my experience they will appear soon. Or at least, make themselves visible when they weren’t before.

    ransos
    Free Member

    Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know if you are actually allowed to just keep chickens wherever the hell you want?

    Dog owner complaining about loud chickens?

    Anyway, as a chicken owner, I observe the following:

    1. They are quite loud just after they’ve laid an egg, but this is a few minutes at most. The rest of the time they just scratch about making very little noise.
    2. We’ve had rats twice in the ten years or so we’ve had chickens. Bait boxes solved that one.
    3. We occasionally get field mice, I leave them be unless they come in the house or start pooing in the chicken food. Then it’s a humane trap and relocation.
    4. Our chickens are locked away in an Eglu at night, which claims to be foxproof.

    dangeourbrain
    Free Member

    Our chickens are locked away in an Eglu at night

    Please tell me that looks like it sounds of should.

    andrewh
    Free Member

    Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know if you are actually allowed to just keep chickens wherever the hell you want?

    Odd as a small urban garden may be it’s still infinitely preferable to battery cages.
    I miss having the sounds of chickens doing chicken stuff when I’m in my garden, but luckily my neighbour has recently got some so I can again have the gentle accompanyment of the hens when I’m out. Just need to devise a way to get rid of the other neighbour’s ****ing wind chime now

    sotonkona
    Free Member

    @ransos I mean no discrimination against chickens (or other poultry), I appreciate I might sound like a hypocrite given I have a dog (and a evil cat, but that’s another story) but my dog barely barks, might go days TBH… except when hearing strange clucking or fox noises in the night time, then all hell breaks loose!

    I was just intrigued as I wasn’t expecting chickens here and didn’t know what the score was. Perhaps my neighbour needs the Eglu (love the fact they are made by Omlet too!) for protection and hopefully some soundproofing – they’d be safe from the foxes and there’s reduced barking potential from my dog – harmony!! 🙂

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    We also have chickens (in an Eglu!) and I’d pretty much agree with everything Ransos wrote – including LOLing at the notion of a dog owner complaining about noise 😂
    Chickens are much quieter than dogs barking, cars revving, music, even children playing loudly and other “normal” neighbour noise. All of our neighbours actually say they like hearing our chickens too because unlike all the other things listed it’s actually a nice sound!

    I’d concede I wouldn’t have them in a tiny inner city garden – not sure that’s the best place to have a noisy dog either though 😀

    feed
    Full Member

    I suspect this issue has been fabricated just to create a thread with a witty title. 10+ posts in and no chicken wordplay yet! Eggstremely disappointing by STW standards.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    BTW I’m not sure noisy foxes have anything to do with the chickens – it’s part of their mating rituals, and January is peak mating season!

    meikle_partans
    Free Member

    Deeds to my 1960s terrace specifically forbid keeping poultry. I think it’s quite common. How it would be enforced I don’t know.

    Im led to believe that even a small number of chickens would likely turn the back garden of an average semi into the Somme before too long.

    sotonkona
    Free Member

    Just to manage egg-spectations it is a real issue, it just took 14 posts to get cracking…

    ransos
    Free Member

    @ransos I mean no discrimination against chickens (or other poultry), I appreciate I might sound like a hypocrite given I have a dog (and a evil cat, but that’s another story) but my dog barely barks, might go days TBH… except when hearing strange clucking or fox noises in the night time, then all hell breaks loose!

    No worried, I was only pulling your leg! As above, foxes can be noisy regardless of chickens…

    Ours are minor celebrities on our street – the neighbours’ kids come round to see them. Everyone enjoys the eggs.

    Im led to believe that even a small number of chickens would likely turn the back garden of an average semi into the Somme before too long.

    I live in an average semi and confirm this. IMO you need enough garden to segregate an area for the chickens and let them do their worst. I put down wood chippings fairly regularly through winter, to try and avoid trench claw.

    As for puns, I wanted Princess Leia and Hen Solo for the most recent pair, but was over ruled. I have managed Layla, Yoko, Henrietta, Shelley and Nugget over the years.

    sotonkona
    Free Member

    Nice work @ransos I’m very disappointed that Princess Leia was overuled though!

    My garden is fine for a small dog who gets walked 3 or 4 times a day at the park and on the beach, but I wouldn’t say it’s sufficient for chickens… in my limited eggs-perience that is!

    Foxes are pretty rampant round here, but have never seen or heard one in the gardens before as they are so hard to get into, they’re normally busy patrolling the streets, checking out the bins and just being cunning.

    blokeuptheroad
    Full Member

    Keen chicken keeper here, 11 at the moment but we’ve been up to 15 at times.  We are rural with no near neighbours and loads of people round here keep chickens anyhow, so no neighbour worries. Re two of the perceived issues, foxes and rats.  Rats (and mice and wild birds) are attracted by chicken food, not chickens.  We use a galvanised steel treadle feeder. The food is completely enclosed until a chicken stands on the treadle and the lid lifts. The treadle is too heavy for a rat to move it. We never get rats in our coop or run. We see foxes regularly in adjoining fields and hear them mating at night, but our run is secure so they can’t get in. We know they try, if it snows we see fox prints all around but to date no losses 🤞 We free range them too (not at the mo, DEFRA ban due to bird flu) but only when we and the dog are around to deter foxes.

    onewheelgood
    Full Member

    The current inhabitants of our Eglu are Nina Simone and Etta James. Over the years we’ve had Thelma and Louise, Paris and Britney, Martha and Amy, Philosohen and Psychohen. They can make a bit of a fuss when they’ve laid an egg, but generally the neighbours like the noises they make. I’ve just built them a much bigger walk in run for their latest lockdown, mandated by DEFRA due to avian flu.

    mjsmke
    Full Member

    Get rid of the dog? No more Barking to wake everyone up.

    reeksy
    Full Member

    Don’t worry about the foxes and rats … when the snakes come for them, that’s when they make a god awful racket.

    ransos
    Free Member

    I’ve just built them a much bigger walk in run for their latest lockdown, mandated by DEFRA due to avian flu.

    Yeah, we bought a much larger run at vast expense now that we can’t have them around the garden.

    The new run is called Cluckingham Palace.

    ernielynch
    Full Member

    BTW I’m not sure noisy foxes have anything to do with the chickens – it’s part of their mating rituals, and January is peak mating season!

    Exactly. Very few animals are noisy hunters, hunters are almost always silent.

    An obvious exception are wolves but that is because they tend to pack hunt their prey by wearing them out to the point of complete exhaustion. Scaring their prey and forcing them to run works very well for them especially if it is a large and strong animal which has the potential to seriously injure a wolf.

    Foxes hunt by stealth so scaring their prey would make no sense. They are however extremely noisy when they are feeling randy….. which occurs in January/early February so that their cubs are born in spring.

    p7eaven
    Free Member

    Alt thread title:

    Does my dog need to be introduced to chickens to get it to shut up?

    We have a few direct neighbours right in town with a few chickens. Had to rescue one from our garden/on the street once. Turns out they’d lost it over two miles away at old address and yet she found her way to our garden which is next door to their new address. That’s amazing to me.

    Often rely on the locals for eggs as won’t buy the shite from ‘Free Range’ McEgg Factory (long story). Immediate locals have not been laying lately tho, so this week had to get the eggbike out early and do a round trip. Eggs. Found this mecca shed shop at the bottom of beyond:

    Got a nice ride in. Got eggs. Got some posh handmade soap for Mrs P for a couple of quid Everyone’s happy.

    OP, Maybe have a word see if you can socialise your dog with the hens! May also create a good opportunity for you to to slip the Omlet/Eglu soundproofing discussion… 😉

    CountZero
    Full Member

    When I was a kid someone a few houses away had chickens, and a cockerel, he’d crow at various times, and nobody thought it was at all odd. That was in a very built-up part of Chippenham, in a council house. I’d rather the soft clucking of the hens than the yappy little rat of a dog the neighbours have, or the cats from the flats over the back, which let themselves out through the window conveniently left open for them to come and leave their evil-smelling shit all over my garden! 🤬

    sotonkona
    Free Member

    Thanks all, interestingly I haven’t heard the chickens since I posted this – I really hope they are OK 😐 I might have to go and check up, whilst taking a peace offering for the noise my dog has been making for the last couple of days!! The real problem is actually the sodding foxes (I should really change the title!), one of which I can see out of my window as I type this, which is winding up every dog in the street!!!

    pictonroad
    Full Member

    If you live in a urban area the foxes are busy making more foxes. It’s an ungodly noise. It’s nothing to do with chickens.

    I’d chalk it up to luck you haven’t heard it before…

    chaos
    Full Member

    I miss our chickens, that gentle clucking sound is lovely to have in the background when working at home.  Sadly the bastard fox chewed through the zip ties where I had had to overlap the chicken wire mesh around the frame of their run.  Cunning little buggers they are.  We’ll get some more hens in the spring and this time, I’ll have to find a better method of fixing the frame and mesh.

    As for rats / mice, I think the cats do a good job of discouraging them judging by the odd offering of bloody entrails on the back door mat occasionally.

    sotonkona
    Free Member

    I’ve lived here for a long time and heard the foxes in the neighbourhood loads, but we’ve never seen or heard them in the gardens before, I think I attributed that new development to the chickens – they’re probably quite an appealing reason to find a way in!! But it could be all number of reasons to be fair to the chickens!

    The foxes are beautiful looking creatures, but like you say, that noise is something else, especially at the dead of night accompanied with a wolf moon! 🙂

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