I live in the city and my neighbor wants to raise chickens in his back yard. In order to get a permit for such a thing, the city of Minneapolis requires that he get permission from 80% of the neighbors within 100 feet of the proposed chicken coop. Our block is very sociable and friendly, and I’m quite worried about the effect that this chicken process will have on neighbor relations. Obviously I don’t want to put up with noisy, smelly chickens. But I don’t want to vote “no” on proposition chicken if it won’t have much of an effect on me.
Does anyone have any experience living near an urban chicken coop? If so, how was the noise and the smell?
For what it’s worth, I imagine that the neighbors will tend the chickens adequately. They’re good neighbors and keep their place up just fine. I’ll just assume that there won’t be a rooster, as this would be a deal breaker. I also assume that they’ll have an adequate enclosure, as our block is subject to constant patrol by the local cat population.
We had a neighbor with chickens and a rooster about a decade ago. The rooster was intolerable, and the rest of the chickens weren’t much better. They’re actually pretty loud in a group, and the noise is constant. I don’t think they ever slept at the same time.
Feathers collect along the fence and get into stuff in your yard.
Bird people always say it’s no problem, but then place the coops as far from their own house as possibe (i.e., nearest to you, probably at the fence line.
Tell them no, and don’t worry about offending them. They won’t worry about you once they get the permit.
I don’t mean to perpetuate any ignorance here - but would there be any worries of avian flu?
And yes - chickens in a group are noisy and stinky. My late grandfather had neighbors with a chicken coop, and the noise as well as the smell was disturbing.
We had neighbors with a couple of chickens and a rooster. The rooster was awful, they don’t only crow at dawn folks, they crow all day and all night long. Eventually we got used to the noise and didn’t even her him anymore, but our guests did. As for the hens, I think they only had two or three, they weren’t too noticeable and the smell and noise weren’t too bad. However, they did get out of there enclosure one night and thought the space on top of our car roof under the carport made an excellent roost. It was kind of funny until we got up in the morning to a roof coated in chicken poop that took three runs through the car wash to get off. It also dented the crap out of the car roof. Evidence
Assuming you mean H5N1 (as there are other kinds of avian-affecting influenza but none that I know of which are harmful to humans at the moment), it doesn’t appear to be present in the Western Hemisphere currently.
Unknown. I would think there needs to be some sort of chicken house. There are a lot of cats in the neighborhood…including three at this particular neighbor’s house. Plus, it gets pretty cold here.
I just meant that for the sake of our discussion here, I’ll assume that there won’t be a rooster. “Will there be a rooster?” will of course be my very first question when this proposal is officially presented. If the answer is “yes” there will be no further discussion.
As a former resident of Minneapolis and a former keeper of Chickens (in a rural environment), I vote NO.
Chickens are loud. They do not understand or keep to the clock, so you’re going to get noise and crowing at all hours, especially shortly before sunrise. Hope you like getting up early if they have a rooster.
Chicken Shit is the most foul and offensive substance on the face of the Earth. I know from personal experience of tending a coop for more than 8 years. Have they even addressed what they’re going to do with it? Because they are NOT putting it in their garden. The stuff will burn/kill everything it touches. It needs to be mulched/rested for several years before being spread on a garden. It also contains and/or can host some really nasty bacteria that will then be spread into the garden vegetables if they’re stupid enough to think they can use it directly by dilluting it or whatever. (“Want a tomato neighbor? They’re real good this year because of our wonderful fertilizer.” No, no thanks.)
The noise and difficulty are going to be increased in an urban environment through the attraction of Cats, Dogs, Racoons and other predators. They’re going to come skulking around in the middle of the night for a free meal and all holy havok is going to ensue, starting with the panicking chickens and moving on to your screaming neighbors trying to deal with it.
How are they planning to keep them? I remember a story in the Strib a couple of months ago about a Hmong family that was keeping chickens or other birds under a turned over basket or some such nonsense, and they kept getting out.
My wfe and I have about a dozen on 2 acres. Not loud, not smelly(except in the chickenhouse itself). Ugly when they molt, and generally evil tempered, but not much of a problem, really.
PS.
Don’t leave your car windows open. They have been known to lay eggs under the accelerator. :eek:
You might head a conflict over a rooster off at the pass – it’s pure myth that they’re necessary to get chickens to lay.
My husband and I recently took a class called “Chickens in the City,” which, as the name implies, was all about raising chickens in the city. The weekend after the class, they held an “open coop” that we could visit. They had 20 chickens, 6 geese, and a handful of ducks (plus two roosters – one original to them, and one that randomly showed up on their propery so they adopted it).
My husband and I are interested in have 6 chickens at most. I think the number is key to how easy it is to clean up after them, and hence how easy to keep the smell to a minimum. See how many your neighbors are interested in having.
The primary factor here for me would be the rooster. Two or three hens is no big deal, but the rooster is a dealbreaker, and anything more than about three hens will be smelly enough and loud enough to make life unpleasant.
I once had a neighbor who kept about a dozen hens, no rooster. They also had a big garden, which devoured the manure. I never looked on the birds as a problem. The poor lonely raccoon hound on the other side was much more annoying.
I once went with a friend to his uncle’s chicken and egg farm to get some fresh eggs. He had hundreds, maybe thousands of chickens. The flies were thick, and they got into the van with us. It took my buddy several days to get all the flies out of his van.
I guess I’ll be the contrarian. I’ve got chickens living next door to me and don’t have any problems. I’ve never had a smell issue and the rooster isn’t particularly annoying as I sleep very lightly yet it never wakes me up. My neighborhood is comprised of lots of very small lots and was primarily a Mexican neighborhood. Many of the residents have small chicken coops (maybe 6 chickens or so) in their backyards but it’s not a problem.
Actually, chickens aren’t as much of a problem as you think. I’ve been raising chickens for a couple of years and as soon as sundown occurs they are almost absolutely silent. Although as soon as the sun comes up it is a different story. As far as smell is concerned, as long as they keep up with regular maintenance it shouldn’t be an issue. And yes, chicken feces make excellent fertilizer when composted for a couple of months. I’ve even used it fresh from the coop when integrated with alternating layers of straw, compost and good soil. It makes an excellent inoculant when sheet-mulching garden beds.
I’d steer clear of the rooster…