To think you should take responsibility for your poultry?

[TheDeuteragonist]

One of our neighbours has recently got a chicken and a rooster. Almost every day they escape or are let out. I'm not sure which because I've never seen anyone chasing them or herding them back in.

Every morning around 7am the rooster cockadoodle-doos. I get that this is what they do and it's not unpleasant unless they are re-enacting chicken run and end up outside our bedroom window. Then it's a bit of a pain.

My biggest concern really is that we don't live in a rural area. Our housing estate backs on to a very busy main road and even so early in the morning there's people driving down our street. Every time I have seen the dynamic duo they've been walking down the road.

Personally, I don't understand why you would decide to keep chickens when you live in a terraced house. But more than that AIBU to think that you should at least accompany your poultry on their morning run or at least take some steps to ensure your garden is more secure to prevent jailbreaks?

I thought you weren't allowed to keep cockerels in a built up area??

The foxes round your way must be pathetic! Ours would have had those chickens in 5 minutes.

We have 16 acres but I wouldn't free range our hens - every time we have they've been killed by a fox and I blame ourselves. We have a huge run for them, so they've plenty of room and are safe.

Hens don't need much equipment- even if you buy a run they're cheap (unless it's an eglu!). The eggs are much nicer than shop eggs and we sell the surplus which pays for the feed too!

Culling cockerels - cruel - wait until you have 6 living next door all crowing at 4am!

So you don't need to buy them a chicken house and feed them proper food? Do they not need to be seen by a vet or anything?

I’ve got 5 chickens and don’t live rurally. I’ve got a very big secure garden and they don’t escape. I got them from a battery farm were they were in the most horrendous state! Poor little things. I’ll never eat a mr Kipling cake again after seeing the cruel conditions they keep thier chickens in.

I would love a cockerel but would never put my neighbours through that noise every morning. Having said that they’ve got a noisy barking dog....

They’ll soon get run over, not your problem really

I don't understand the want to keep chickens in a suburban garden, I chicken sit for my friends chickens and her gardens full of poo and destroyed because of her two chickens!
The house I'm in the process of buying has chickens behind the fence in the neighbours front garden. Why on earth you'd put chickens in your front garden I have no idea?

What a PITA! This would drive me insane especially the crowing at 7am.

Buy a fox.

Do you live near me OP? YANBU.

One of our neighbours has just done the same, the only difference is their bastarding cockerel starts his doodle-dooing at 5am, which will only get worse as the mornings get lighter. Highly amusing discussion on the local FB group ongoing - I was contacted by a reporter who wanted to run a story on it...shows you how much happens in my town.

It's so anti-social, there are ways you can minimise the crowing apparently - #1 is moving the poor bird to somewhere more suitable to live and stop pissing off your neighbours!

They completely ruin any lawn.

They need to be on wood chip or something like that so that they can scratch around. Any lawn will be a patch of bare earth in a matter of days.

However this can be useful. If we replace ours at the weekend I am putting the run over the patch of lawn I want to dig up to increase the size of the vegetable plot. Saves me digging it!

There are local by laws that mean you cant keep chickens or roosters in a town, plus they have to have some way to dispose of the droppings and litter,so if you phone the Council or RSPCA they could be removed.
Chickens don't bother me so much but you don't need a rooster unless you want to breed.

We lived in a detached suburban house and kept chickens. Never kept a rooster as it was illegal where we loved due to the noise. They escaped maybe once a year (even then never onto the street). It's really not hard to be a responsible chicken keeper. Keep an eye out for rats OP. If they can't be bothered securing them they probably aren't keeping the roost very clean either.

We have kept hens for about 10 yrs, the run is secure (wire is buried and large stones around edge under soil) and any new cluckers aren't allowed out until they understand the 'tub'

The 'tub' is an ice cream box of yummy chicky treats which gets shaken and they all come running.

Usually into the run.

Oh and they are only allowed out under supervision as we have cats and foxes. It's very unfair to expect them to deal with predators or cars etc.

Apart from outlay in our case for runs it costs us £10 a week to feed/grit/oyster shell ours. Extra £5 when worming one week every 3months. That’s for 17 hens. We sell our spare eggs and that covers the food etc every week.

Sounds like they are “free ranging” during the day time, pretty normal if you have an electric fence or no fixesknown near by. Plus if the wings are not clipped they could fly high enough into a tree to avoid mr/Mrs fox.

another urban chicken keeper here- we are not allowed to keep cockerels (and I would not anyway) I suggest you contact the council as the noise is not acceptable in a town. The escaping is a nuisance but if they are new to it - they may just not have figured out yet how to keep them in. It took us a while, but they rarely escape now and if they do they stay in our garden.
For those troubled by rats, allow me to recommend one of these
they are brilliant- rat proof, weather proof, not cheap but have saved me a fortune!

Newtlover we've got one of those.

I think our lot use it as a see saw

Wowza, thanks for the replies!

I didn't know that cockerals couldn't be kept in areas like ours so I will have a look into that.

DP thought DD was being silly when she loudly exclaimed that there were chickens in the road, but sure enough there they were. I've only ever seen the two of them.

Worried about the rats, though. Urgh. I hope they don't show up.

I'm flummoxed about which house they are coming from. We are a row of terraced houses with an alleyway running across the back. The gardens aren't even gardens, mostly little yards! So I can't imagine they are being kept in the best of conditions, poor things.

Cockerels get culled?? That's seems mean..

When we hatched chicks, we kept all the boys. We did have them in a large field, and they sorted out the pecking order, so didn't fight.

Cats are fine around chickens. If they get any ideas, they soon change their mind after a sharp peck on the nose! But in my experience, cats tend to keep their distance. One of our cats liked to sleep in the garden, (this was when we only had 3 chickens, in the garden) but if one of the girls decided to get too close to the cat, she'd leave the garden as she didn't like them too near.

If you have enough chickens, they pay for themselves, pretty much, by providing lots of lovely eggs to sell.

And they're great pets. We had some real characters amongst our flock, who are really missed.

There are rats every where - nothing to do with keeping chickens

Rats only show up where people keep their chicken food open. We seal ours in tubs and never have a rat near the place.