AIBU?
AIBU to think a rooster is an unsuitable animal to keep in suburbia?
OuchBollocks · 10/07/2017 18:12
I live in a new-ish housing development and as such, the gardens aren't massive and all back onto one another. One of my neighbours has gone and got a bloody rooster!! DH and I have heard the bloody thing crowing all day, it's Day 1 and it's already making me feel murderous AIBU to think roosters are for the countryside?
Fireinthegrate · 10/07/2017 18:24
Yes this is definitely unreasonble.
As it's a new estate there is probably a clause somewhere banning keeping farm animals, ie, cockerel, chickens, goats, etc.
Have a look at the deeds for your house, your neighbour's will be the same.
I live in the countyside and keep chickens but had to get rid of the cockerel because of the noise it made. It started crowing i. The summer at 3.30am!
PossumInAPearTree · 10/07/2017 18:33
Keeping a cockerel in a box overnight is very cruel. Works by the box being too small so the cockerel can't stretch its neck to crow.
Talk to the neighbour, they may sort it.
I have chickens (countryside) and hatched some fertile eggs out once and ended up with a cockerel. Neighbour was round within a day of it starting crowing asking if it was a permanent addition. Now I could have argued that she lives in the country and should expect such noise. However I'm nice, don't want neighbour to be unhappy so I killed it....cockerel that is, not the neighbour!
So try talking to them first. If that doesn't work you could check your deeds, see if it's banned. If not you may struggle to get anything done. I don't think the council will class it as a noise nuisance.
TitsalinaBumSquash · 10/07/2017 18:36
We keep chickens and we had a hatch last year, typically our favourite chick turned out to be a rooster. We wrote letters to all the neighbours basically saying that we love him and we'd very much like to keep him but if they felt he was becoming too loud or disruptive then please let us know and we would rehome him. We also leave several boxes of eggs by out front hedge with a sign inviting people to take them for free.
Eventually he did get too noisy, all our tricks stopped working so we did rehome him, it was because our neighbours at the end of our row of houses got a rooster too and they started competing so a few crows became non stop crowing to impress the hens.
They still have theirs and he's a noisy boy but we're used to it, I wouldn't dream of complaining, it's not different to a barking dog or meowing cat, we also have very noisy foxes locally so animal noise is normal and easily drowned out.
Oh, also no they don't need a lot of room to roam, poultry needs surprisingly little room to free range to be healthy and happy.
OuchBollocks · 10/07/2017 18:37
My garden adjoins quite a few other ones so I'm not sure which twat neighbour owns the bird. I wouldn't want it to be badly treated. There is a good chance it's not allowed, we had to sign a very restrictive covenant when we moved in, and as the developers are still developing they are shit hot on breaches of it.
sall74 · 10/07/2017 19:05
My friend has an arsehole neighbour who keeps 5, yes 5 cockerels!
They're as far away from his own house as it's possible for him to put them, at the far end of a 150ft long L shaped garden but right next to other peoples adjacent houses and gardens.
They're in separate enclosures but all right next to each other, so they're constantly competing with each other, from 3.30 am to gone 10pm there literally is never more than 30 seconds peace and quiet before one of them screeches and sets the others off.
I honestly don't know how or why the neighbours put up with it.
Salmotrutta · 10/07/2017 19:21
My great grandparents had a cockerel (not a rooster because they weren't American) and apparently it was a right Nasty beggar that used to fly at people and attack them.
Then one day it flew at great grandad and tried to attack him so he grabbed it and wrung its neck.
Great granny plucked it and used it to make stock by all accounts.
OuchBollocks · 12/07/2017 21:13
ROOSTER UPDATE!!
My next door neighbours' teenage daughter has just been sent round to ask to check our garden cos the fucker has ESCAPED! There is a rooster running loose through Home Counties suburbia.
On a side note it was a cunning plan to send the teenager. If the adults had come I could have complained bitterly about the bird.
silkpyjamasallday · 13/07/2017 06:39
I imagine a cat or dog or fox will solve your problem for you now OP, certainly before the owners can find him. I would say go round after it's been a while and ask them not to get another, but then it will look like you assassinated the rooster unfortunately.
WatchingFromTheWings · 13/07/2017 07:27
Complain to the council. Alot of areas don't allow it. I once had a neighbour with one that started making noise at 5am on the dot. Woke me every day and I lived about 6 doors away. Must have been awfully those immediately next door! It dissapeared after 3 months. Found out someone complained it wasn't me and council made him get rid thank god!.
thecapitalsunited · 13/07/2017 07:31
Even if you have something in your deeds the Allotment Act 1950 contains provisions to allow any one to keep chickens and rabbits in a garden. Was at a time of rationing so made sense but it's still on the satire books.
I know it's called the Allotment Act but the portion talking about chickens refers to all land not just allotments. There's probably not a lot you can do about the rooster unless you go through the noise nuisance people at the council.
HotelEuphoria · 13/07/2017 07:39
Please do complain. Seriously I live in surburbia and my neighbour (with a long garden) keeps chickens at the top of the garden which happens to be next to our fence with our house wall just three feet beyond. The chickens I can cope with, especially these rare breed ones he currently has as they are not too noisy and don't start early or finish late. The clucking is intermittent.
A couple of years ago he had a cockerel. Seriously those people who say they like a cockerel in a morning crowing haven't had one next door. It is horrendous, they start crowing when it is still dark and don't stop all day. You probably get a few of hours respite between 10pm and 3am, even in the depths of winter. The noise can penetrate triple glazing.
It is tortuous. I think other neighbours complained because the poor old cockerel lasted about four months, I like to think it was given to a farmer and lives happily in the country now.
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