Cockerel in built up area

[Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain]

Can’t believe I’m writing this! Neighbours a few doors down at the back of me have kept chickens for years. No harm, rarely hear them. They may attract rodents but that’s it.

Anyway, at the weekend I heard a cockerel crowing at 4am! Twice so far and every morning since so must be new. We live in SE London/surrey borders, 1930s/victorian/georgian houses. Checked with neighbour on my side who backs onto them and yes, it is indeed a cockerel.

The cockerel woke me up before the storm in SE London last night/5am this morning! Luckily I have earplugs in my medicine cabinet, but my window was open before the storm broke.

Anyway, are there any rules or regulations about keeping cockerels in urban areas? What can I do? They’re nice neighbours at the back, keep bees and sometimes give me honey and eggs. We are not in the countryside. We do have urban foxes living locally…

By the way, I am generally an animal lover. But if my sleep comes at a cost, then it’s war! Whoaahhh whoaaahhh what is it good for? Absolutely nothing say it again! Yes, I’ve had a couple of gins in prep for England game.

Someone in my street had a turkey for a while, I could hear it gobbling when I walked past. Nowhere near as annoying as a cockerel though

My Neighbours have a Peacock which again is up really early. I love It! Everyone asks what the hell was that, when I'm on the phone!

I would love to be awaken by a cockerel

Tell that to people living next door to babies screaming all night!

I keep poultry (but live in the middle of a field in the country). One day I realised whilst on a Teams call that a large white cockerel had perched himself on the back of my chair. The best bit was that nobody else on the call said a thing! Or a dicky bird...

I love this idea, but sadly most people are not that tolerant. This is why we have hens, but not a Cockerel 😟

Sounds wonderful 🙂

I guess you could spike some food with an “additive” and listen for the result, which would be silence.

I'm assuming this was meant in jest but that is absolutely sick. Can you imagine the uproar if someone suggested dealing with a barking dog in a similar way?

It does make me laugh the thought of hearing a Cockerell at 5 am every morning..they're animal lovers but will keep him in a dark shed .
They obviously need to go and life somewhere more countryfide 😂

Update, local street WhatsApp has been buzzing away about this and a petition is being organised. Several people have messaged the owners who now say they’d prefer to keep him.

So we’re going down the council noise complaint route involving keeping a diary. Or I’ll enlist a fox.

I’ve worn gel earplugs past few nights but would prefer not to use them. It has also started crowing during the day when I’m wfh due to heat.

As I stated before, and my neighbours are saying this is in an urban built up area and they’re legally not allowed to keep it as it’s a noise nuisance. I doubt it’s kept in a dark shed (guidance for keeping it and preventing it crowing) and if so that’s cruel. Parents with kids and babies have complained on WhatsApp they and their kids are started to be woken by him and they aren’t happy.

Feel like I’m on the set of Emmerdale and Clarkson’s Farm.

No chance. They’ve lived there for years. Retired.

There are several threads here about keeping cockerels in urban town areas and general consensus is keeping them is being unreasonable. Rural locations fine. When my parents had a holiday home in rural France after a few years their neighbours got a loud cockerel. But it’s the countryside and you expect to hear that. I used earplugs when I stayed there. Didn’t want to get used to the noise and woken up early when en vac (on holiday).

Keeping the coop dark overnight until 7am isn’t cruel. Birds sleep when it’s dark. It (and the hens) would have to be kept inside a coup overnight anyway if tgere are foxes about.

I know. That’s fair.

But it can’t be in a coop, or it’s crowing inside the coop. I don’t want to tell anyone how to treat their cockerel.

The amount of people who are like:-

• you’ll get used to it, it’s a lovely sound
• poor cockerel can’t it be allowed to crow

I may just look into getting a peacock and see how that goes down with its meaw call. I can’t actually, my garden is no way big enough and if I let it out the front it’ll soon get run over.

A friend has just moved into a flat in a city . Opposite is a petting farm with a cockerel and hens. She gets woken at 4 am every morning and it's driving her insane.

There are lots of foxes around. But I understand they let the chickens (and cockerel) out early in the morning, 5 or 6 am when they get up. So the foxes must’ve gone by then. They have large barky dogs which keep the foxes away so they say too. They can’t value their sleep is all I can say.

A fox actually killed another neighbours rabbit sadly about 2-3 years ago, wonder if they know about that. It was foolishly let out in the garden with no pen to protect it, and not watched and the foxes pounced in the middle of a sunny day.

We have a cockerel AND a pair of peacocks 😁 They stand guard in random places around the same 5 streets. We moved in last year and I mostly sleep through it now.

It’s surprising what your brain gets used to. I grew up next to a railway line after moving in when I was 5. I think the trains kept me awake for about two weeks, after that I barely registered when they passed.

I feel her pain. Wonder if they’re allowed to do this as it’s a city petting farm. You’d think they’d be more considerate though, find a solution to stop it crowing. Yes, I know they like to crow. I’ve seen the Kellogg’s ads with the large cockerel wandering around.

Are you in the city or countryside?

Trains are fine, my nana and best friend both lived separately to different busy train lines, you barely heard them after a while.

This thing is 4 or 5 in the morning and now throughout the day! Aaarrgghh!

looks up French 🇫🇷 recipe for coq au vin.

To keep a coup completely dark, it must be covered with something. Otherwise, the dawn light will get in the cracks and around the door and he will then greet the morning.

It’s started recently at 4am. I have no idea what they’re doing though. Keeping it covered or not.

I can hear it 2 doors down at the back, their house backs onto my neighbours. The noise really travels especially with windows open in this heat. My neighbour 2 doors down, is already not happy with the noise of their chickens but is kind of used to it. Plus we get rats and if it’s down to their chickens I wouldn’t be happy but as I’ve only seen a few (my cat caught 2 this year) I can let that pass.

I just wish people would be more thoughtful. No idea how long Croydon council will take to deal with this.

I mean, if they're not allowed in your borough then they're not allowed and there'll be a clear channel you can go down to get it sorted.

but you may find you just get used to it. I mean, you live in Bromley, it's hardly going to be silent nights there, is it??

I live at the edge of a small village and every bugger round here keeps chickens in their back gardens! (You'd think there would, at least, be reasonably priced eggs for sale at the bottoms of gardens but no, £3 for half a dozen now appears to be the going rate ... ) For a while, we had TWO cockerels next door and they were a real PITA. One vanished and the other was apparently a family favourite for years but has gone - either to the nice big farm in the sky, or an actual farm where it belonged in the first place. Bloody thing would wake up in the middle of the night, nowhere near dawn, and start tooting. But we did get used to him in the end.