about keeping chickens in a residential area?

[whothehellknows]

I live in terraced cottage in a rural village, and my next door neighbors keep several rescue chickens in a run that extends behind the bottom end of my garden. I like animals and I think it's sweet that they gave the chickens a nice new home. So, I've gotten used to the smell and the cockerel that crows throughout the day and night. The one thing I'm not so cool with is the chickens' ginormous rat budddies.

I have a couple of DDs that would ideally like to be playing and doing cartwheels on the lawn, but they run in screaming whenever they see a rat and are getting scared to go outdoors. At times I've spotted several at a time, scampering across my garden those that adjoin it. I don't know if it's true that for every rat you see there will be several more that you don't, but it does concern me a bit. Last year I heard heavy skittering overhead, which turned out to be a rat in the next door neighbor's loft. Obviously if a rat chews through a wire in their loft and starts a fire, my terraced house is likely to catch as well.

I've spent quite a lot on poison and followed advice from environmental health and pest control services in using it, resulting in some stinky dead rats that the DDs found even more worrying than the live ones. But new ones keep popping up.

Environmental health have already been out to visit them last year and another neighbor has requested that they visit again because of damage to her garden because of the rats.

AIBU to feel a little irked at having to spend money and fill my garden with poison because of my neighbor's animals? I can't decide if it's just a fact of life that you have to deal with because you have neighbors, like if a cat poos on your lawn-- or if maybe NDN should have considered the impact their chickens could have before rehoming them.

Dont think the chickens and rats are linked. Something else is going on. Talk to pest control

Exactly LeChien the rats aren't there because of the chickens. The rats are there because they're there, and poor hygiene (of any kind) will encourage them. It's not automatic that if you have chickens you must also have a rat problem

I live in the suburbs and have four ex bat chickens free ranging in my little garden. They don't smell because we clean them out regularly, and we don't get mice or rats because their food is put away at night.

Do your neighbours leave the food out overnight? If so then that needs to stop. You need to sit down with them and tell them exactly what problems they are causing, including the bloody cockerel! It is their responsibility to sort it out.

We have chickens, and as others have said, it's not inevitable that they will smell and you'll get rats.

We have 4 ex-battery hens, we did have more but they're getting on a bit and we're slowly losing them. They're just pets now really, they don't lay anymore, they're just living out their retirement

Their house is cleaned out regularly, we pick up the poo from the garden and house daily. The area under their house is paved so it can be swept/hosed down easily.

They really don't smell and it doesn't take very long to do each day. If they've got 12 or so hens, then it really should be kept on top of. Our 4 can make a right old mess, so I dread to think what 12 could get up to

We've never had rats, they're attracted to the food so we just make sure we never leave anything lying around. The girls have their bowl of scraps for breakfast (I boil up potato peelings/veg/rice/etc as a sort of stew) so it's eaten/cleared away early. Chicken food is kept in a sealed plastic bin in the utility room. We bring the feeder indoors once the girls have gone to bed.

Rats and smell aren't inevitable, it just takes a bit of work. I check with my neighbours regularly to make sure the hens aren't causing a nuisance and none have ever complained about smell or rats.

I'd speak to environmental health again.

I saw a rat in my garden the other day (and none of my neighbours have chickens) so I'm not sure the two are linked

Nothing to stop anyone keeping chickens anywhere. If there are over 50, you need to register with DEFRA. Otherwise there might be local bye-laws prohibiting it or covenants in property deeds.

keeping-chickens.me.uk/getting-started/rules-and-regulations

onedog on the estate in our village which has this in their deeds someone has chickens. People have complained and no one has done anything to the chicken woman, she still has them.

I think you can also pay to have restrictive covenants removed.

I had chickens, but didn't get rats and the smell can be prevented by hosing down daily and using disinfectant to sanitise.

It sounds as through they need to step up the cleaning and not leaving food out will prevent rats.

Cockerels in residential areas are totally unacceptable and your local council will be able to help if you report it. Most areas don't allow cocks and your neighbours should get rid of him.

Of course rats and chickens are linked, though of course you can also have one without the other. Good advice so far. My suggestions for you neighbour are:
House on stilts (so rats cant hide rtheir tunnels underneath and cats can getynder
No food out overnight
Keep hedges etc cut back - rats fear attack from hawks so cling close to cover when they can.

It is an environmental health issue, tell them you want to help as you don't want them getting in trouble but be firm, telk them your kids ate afraid to play in the garden plus, you don't want weil's disease wtc. Tbh it sounds pretty gross

Re the smell, 12 is a LOT for a garden and they will need cleaning out regularly - weekly at least. Assuming they are on straw or shavings, where is this going aftetwards? If all being added to compost heap that would smell too. But its a lot to put in the bin? Similarly if water (rain etc) is getting in tomake the dirty litter wet, that's when you get the stink.

I have been there (youu are learning from my early mistakes!) - got a neighbour to bring his terrier to dig them out. Gruesome but impressive!

There are bylaws which prevent cocks being kept in residential areas.

Chickens do make pleasant pets, but they're hard work to keep clean.

Yes, I agree, cockerels are definitely unreasonable in residential areas. We've never had one, I don't want to be disturbed by them, let alone pissing off the neighbours

There are steps you can take to stop the crowing though - keeping his house very dark and not letting him out until a reasonable time, a high perch so he can't stretch his neck.

Yes, rats are everywhere but as long as you keep on top of cleaning, making sure food is put away, they shouldn't be attracted to the garden, and become a problem.

I'd be going back to environmental health

onedog on the estate in our village which has this in their deeds someone has chickens. People have complained and no one has done anything to the chicken woman, she still has them.

I think you can also pay to have restrictive covenants removed.

Restrictive covenants are a private matter. To be enforced the beneficiary landowner must take the servient to court. They don't always bother as it may not be worth the money.

It's not as simple as paying to have them removed. You can apply to the Lands Tribunal to have a RC removed. It can be costly. The Tribunal will look to see whether the covenant is obsolete, whether it impedes some reasonable use of the land, and that no injury will be caused to the beneficiary of the other land.

There is nothing wrong with keeping chickens in a residential area. You should also resign yourself to the idea you have a very large rat population there, you need to try and control it, and you can't definitely scapegoat someone's chickens as the problem - they may have nothing to do with it.

If there is an association between the rat problem and chickens that are overcrowded and stinking, it is likely you will never control the rats because more will keep coming, and likely the chickens are being kept in cruel conditions and suffering terribly.

If you and your neighbours have exhausted all other avenues, and you can establish firmly that the chickens are not being looked after well enough, I would be tempted to go down the animal welfare route without revealing to any of your neighbours that you are doing so. I know it seems unneighbourly, but as a layperson trying to persuade lazy/dirty/cruel people to look after their animals differently rarely results in anything other than over-the-top animosity unless there is a real world punishment, in which case there is little point in you having the argument and getting the strife.

I would adopt a couple of cats, OP, meanwhile. (Though you would have make the rat poison was somewhere they can't get it)

I love to hear a rooster crowing myself.

The couple two doors down from me have chickens in the city. I LOVE the noise they make when they lay an egg. Everytime I hear it, it makes me laugh!!

They don't smell, but we have started to get rats. I think that is as likely to be the food that my neighbours and I put out for birds as it is the chickens, though. We have banded together and we each have a humane rat trap. My neighbour drives all the rats out to the middle of the countryside (national park) and lets them go. It seems to be keeping the problem down.

We have a lot of domestic cats in our neighbourhood, but they seem far too lazy to catch anything (at least, mine is).

I think YANBU to be irked by this. I would be.

I have chickens, it sounds like they're not being cleaned out often enough if they smell, and there's rats, unless they're leaving food down all the time.

I clean out every day, and food is only put out whilst the chickens are out. When they go to bed, I remove it. It's also placed in the middle of the garden, out in the open. I still got rats though, they were living under next door's ramshackle shed. I had no idea until DD2's BF spotted one, they staked out the kitchen window, and actually saw three. Until then, I'd have happily said no rats. They're gone now though, I shot them. I think, even if you don't actually see them, rats are inevitable unless you are scrupulous about cleanliness and food, and even then you're liable to get them.

Roosters are unsociable, and unnecessary, particularly in urban areas.

I would call environmental health again and see what they can do. If it's an ongoing issue they may be able to take steps to enforce your neighbours taking better care of the chickens.

I do live in a rural village with a great deal of farmland AND a waterway, as well as plenty of barns and outbuildings for shelter, so I would expect to see the odd rat or two every now and again.

Three things make me feel that the current volume of rats is attracted by the chickens (or more accurately, their food): 1. I've lived in other nearby houses in the village for years at a time without ever seeing a rat, and none of my local friends have either. 2. We didn't have any problems with rats here until the chickens arrived, and 3. When we called out Environmental health this time last year, they said clearly that the rats were living on the chicken food, and counted six live rats in the run when they visited.

The Environmental health officer gave advice at the time to help us kill off the rats and he gave strong advice to next door about getting the feeders off the ground and how to store feed, etc. We all followed advice, killed off loads of the buggers and the problem seemed sorted-- until a couple of weeks ago.

Re: the rat upstairs, it was actually in the neighbor's loft. Our houses were originally built as one house and part of his loft space extends over part of my bedroom. It worries me because if one rat has managed to get in before, then another may do the same.

EH are due to come out again on Friday, but I'm not sure what powers they have and whether they can do more than give advice. I'd love to just get a cat but my landlords don't allow pets.