Keeping chickens in gardens - is this unreasonable?

sevenhills

Stateofart said:

Untrue.  The noise if straying into anti-social territory can be deemed a nuisance.  Think it's 5mins noise per hour is deemed a nuisance.  We have just gone through this process with our neighbour's dog barking.  Took a while, but now they are on final warning to stop it otherwise they'll be prosecuted.

I don't think that you can compare a dog barking vs hens clucking, even a full flock of hens would not be as noisy as a dog.

prettyandfluffy

I used to keep chickens in my garden and there was never an issue with smell because I cleaned them out every day. I also asked my neighbours to tell me if the noise was an issue (it wasn't),  if the chickens smell it sounds to me like there might be an animal welfare issue here? Perhaps another angle to explore.  

bluelass

orangeflowers said:

Hi.  I'm just looking for other peoples opinions.

We've just moved into our new house and discovered our neighbours keep chickens, (about 4 or 5 hens we think) next to our house. They have a really big garden, on a corner plot, so only have us as neighbours. There own house must be approx 50m away from these chickens. 

The brick wall at the top of the photo is the corner of my house. My upstairs bedroom window is just out of shot, but inline with the dining room window you can see to the right. The fence is our boundary and then the hut is the chicken coop!  You can just make out one of the neighbours hens in bottom left of the picture. 

There is a distinct odour from here! I can smell them when I walk past and when I open my bedroom window and they are rather loud when laying eggs, which is annoying when it wakes us up! It's not everyday, but it's often enough! 

I have tried politely speaking with them, but they were very abrupt with me, telling me that the chickens were there first! (Not off to a great start!)

Does anyone else think that putting chickens this close to another person's house is weird? I would appreciate some advice. Or is it me just being unreasonable.

I have no issues with the actual chickens. My issue is how close they are to our house.

I will appreciate any replies. 

I hope the chickens are being cared for well.

Dustyevsky

bluelass said:

orangeflowers said:

Hi.  I'm just looking for other peoples opinions.

We've just moved into our new house and discovered our neighbours keep chickens, (about 4 or 5 hens we think) next to our house. They have a really big garden, on a corner plot, so only have us as neighbours. There own house must be approx 50m away from these chickens. 

The brick wall at the top of the photo is the corner of my house. My upstairs bedroom window is just out of shot, but inline with the dining room window you can see to the right. The fence is our boundary and then the hut is the chicken coop!  You can just make out one of the neighbours hens in bottom left of the picture. 

There is a distinct odour from here! I can smell them when I walk past and when I open my bedroom window and they are rather loud when laying eggs, which is annoying when it wakes us up! It's not everyday, but it's often enough! 

I have tried politely speaking with them, but they were very abrupt with me, telling me that the chickens were there first! (Not off to a great start!)

Does anyone else think that putting chickens this close to another person's house is weird? I would appreciate some advice. Or is it me just being unreasonable.

I have no issues with the actual chickens. My issue is how close they are to our house.

I will appreciate any replies. 

I hope the chickens are being cared for well.

Probably much better than those of certain supermarkets!

Archergirl

Why was the house for sale, was there a dispute with the neighbours over the chickens, if so was it reported?