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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To complain about the cockerel?

34 replies

cosmobrown · 05/08/2015 10:31

We have just moved house and there is a cockerel that seems to wander freely up and down outside our row of 8 houses. However, in the mornings, it starts "cock-a-doodling" at 4.45am down our end of the lane, and continues shouting until around 7am, when it wanders off down to the other end of the houses.
I asked our neighbour who owns it, and she said it belongs to someone down the other end, but it won't stay in their garden (??).
DH doesn't get home from work until midnight, and our dd is autistic and we really suffer if she gets over tired. (Luckily, dd has slept through it so far.)
Any ideas on how to handle this?

OP posts:

FishWithABicycle · 05/08/2015 10:45

Is this an urban or rural location?

If you are in a city - YANBU.
Countryside/small village - YABU Cockerels are normal part of rural life and either get some earplugs or move to a city.

PercyGherkin · 05/08/2015 10:49

What Fish said about location.

If she's slept through it then hopefully she will continue to do so (and the more it goes on the better chance of this for all of you - will just become background noise).

Also it will get later depending on the time of year!

DJThreeDog · 05/08/2015 11:01

How to handle it? A chopping block and a large cleaver

I think if it's a farming area then you might have to suck it up I'm afraid. I don't know why the owners can't stick it in a chicken run in their own back garden though, Chicken Run says they don't fly yes I do it's because they don't want to be woken up by it

Allalonenow · 05/08/2015 11:03

Perhaps you should put coq au vin on the menu

sonjadog · 05/08/2015 11:04

How long have you been there? You will probably get used to it and won't wake up in a while.

FloppyRagdoll · 05/08/2015 11:05

If it's a rural location, YABU.
We moved to a village and our neighbour had chickens and a cockerel. Used to love waking to the sound of the cockerel in the middle of the night, realising we were in the country, hearing country noises and drifting off to sleep again; instead of the yelling and shouting from our druggie neighbours in our previous home.

Then our neighbour decided off her own bat that poor newly-transplanted townies (it was a new build) shouldn't have to put up with cockerel sounds and turned him into soup! We were really upset.

OTOH if the cockerel won't stay where it should, its owners need to get better fencing or the poor thing will probably be run over or taken by a fox.

Mimigolightly · 05/08/2015 11:06

What do you want your neighbour to do about the cockerel? Trying to gag them is very difficult as they always seem to get the bloody thing off their beak. You should consider yourself lucky if it only crows in the mornings, there's one near us that crows all day and all night. Barring killing it, I suggest ear plugs.

chrome100 · 05/08/2015 11:08

I am not sure what difference it makes being rural or urban. If people keep chickens, they keep chickens, regardless of where they live.

I live in a city next to a farm and two small holdings. There are cockerels and goats. They piss me off. But there's unfortunately nothing I can do. I've learned to ignore it.

PUGaLUGS · 05/08/2015 11:13

We have a cockerel living (on a farm) at the end of our street on the back lane. It starts early too. It's just part of life round here. The farm was here long before these houses were built.

You do get used to it.

FloppyRagdoll · 05/08/2015 11:17

To me it makes a difference between rural and urban, chrome, because if you move to the country, you can't really complain about country noises.

AskingForAPal · 05/08/2015 11:18

There's nothing you can do about it. Even if they kept it in, it would probably still be near enough to be quite loud.

Plus, as others have said, you just have to suck it up. Someone moved to our village a few years back, lovely house right near the church, and complained about the church bells. Apparently them ringing for an hour or so on practice nights and at 9ish on Sunday morning was an outrage. I think someone dropped them down the well they moved out not long after.

AskingForAPal · 05/08/2015 11:19

There's nothing you can do about it. Even if they kept it in, it would probably still be near enough to be quite loud.

Plus, as others have said, you just have to suck it up. A couple moved to our village a few years back, lovely house right near the church, and complained about the church bells. Apparently them ringing for an hour or so on practice nights and at 9ish on Sunday morning was an outrage. I think someone dropped them down the well they moved out not long after.

AskingForAPal · 05/08/2015 11:19

Sorry!

Original poster

cosmobrown · 05/08/2015 11:20

What do I want them to do about it? - I want them to keep it on their own property - not outside our bedroom window!!!

DH wants to get a pet fox…….

No idea how it has evaded foxes so far, and it does crow all day, but it is obviously only the early morning crowing that causes a problem.

We have lived rural for a long time, and like it. But I am thinking someone else's cockerel outside our bedroom window is not on - I am fairly sure it lives 6 houses down the lane.

You wouldn't let your dog bark in someone else's garden, so why a cockerel?

OP posts:

springlamb · 05/08/2015 11:24

I thought there were rules about keeping cockerels in urban areas (although not chickens of course).
If a rural area, it is something you just have to get used to. I barely notice our lane's cockerel now although he's at it all day. But when I first moved here he was all I could hear! It will get better.
Some people on a local new development, which was marketed as the perfect rural idyll, are complaining about cows near them.

Original poster

cosmobrown · 05/08/2015 11:26

Oh it annoys me about the church bells thing. How stupid.
I don't actually want the cockerel to die - just to keep it away from our bedroom window at 5am!

OP posts:

springlamb · 05/08/2015 11:28

Although I admit the owner is taking a great risk letting it roam - if it's a feisty one it might be able to see off a fox but not a 4-wheel drive, or a cocknapper!
All the local poultry here are locked up in pens with roofs overnight. It's not hard to get them in, just shake some food at them.

RumbleMum · 05/08/2015 11:29

I live in a rural area and I still think YANBU. IMO if you have immediate neighbours you shouldn't be keeping a cockerel at all (I'm talking a cockerel, not hens) unless you rely on producing chicks to make money, and then you should take reasonable measures to keep it on your property. It's bloody antisocial. Rural noises are one thing, but cockerels are impossible to sleep through!

Viviennemary · 05/08/2015 11:34

I agree that this noise is different in a if you live in a country type place. But it is a bit cheeky that this bird is sent up to your house rather than outside his own. So you should say something but what. I suppose you could keep a pet fox that happened to like wandering up and down.

tomatodizzymum · 05/08/2015 11:34

Not unreasonable, I have a cockeral and he started crowing on my window ledge at 4am (not even light) I super secured the hen house and have to do it regularly because he's now massive and pecks holes in the chicken wire. Now I can let him out when I'm ready to wake up. They need to secure their garden better if they want to keep chickens. Cocks have an amazing habit of getting away from foxes and other predators, ours lost his whole tail plume once because the silly bugger was out at night (no idea what had a go at him) but he survived. So I would insist they secure their garden. Either that or have coq au vin

cricketballs · 05/08/2015 11:37

a close neighbour to us decided to get one and the first we knew about it was about 4.30am!
You soon get used to the noise, just as you do any other type of noise that frequently happens

tomatodizzymum · 05/08/2015 11:38

and on a side note, you do actually get used to the sound, we used to get woken up at 5am when we moved from London but now we sleep in on a sunday despite all efforts from our guinea fowl and peacocks (they are 100X worse than cocks if you can believe it), local squaking birds, cats and cows. Peace and quiet in the countryside is a flipping joke.

tomatodizzymum · 05/08/2015 11:39

cross post with cricketballs

Original poster

cosmobrown · 05/08/2015 11:39

ok. So, I think I'm going to mention it……in a naice way of course. I need to find out why it is allowed to roam around.

Can you get wild cockerels? Maybe it doesn't belong to anyone?? I need to see a neighbour down "that" end of the Lane to sign a petition about a planning app that has cropped up, so that will be my introduction.

Unless the feisty wild cockerel gets me first…..

OP posts:

WorraLiberty · 05/08/2015 11:41

If you're pretty sure the cockerel lives 6 houses down the lane, doesn't that answer your question about what to do?

You give them a knock and tell them what you've told us.

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