AIBU to think I could keep chickens in a normal house in an suburban area?

[KitKat1985]

I've always wanted to have some pet chickens. I've been looking today at these 'Eglu' houses (link below) and it's making me think maybe I could just do it and keep 2-3 chickens in our garden. I've had friends that have had them and found them lovely pets, and our DDs would love them. But is it a completely nuts idea? Our house is detached, but our neighbours are in reasonably close proximity. We have a small-medium sized garden. Has anyone done this? Do they cause problems (noise, smell etc) that are likely to make me a very unpopular neighbour?

www.omlet.co.uk/shop/chicken_keeping/

Re noise, they are in no way noisier than the dogs, children, car engines, car horns, car alarms, people chatting, etc etc. etc. that you get on the average street. Mine don't cluck at all in the mornings

I suppose all chickens are individual but mine definately were!
Never in a million years would I have bought them if I'd known they were going to be that loud.
And as soon as it started getting light and they wanted out of the coop they would start.
So early!

Chickens aren' t classed as livestock.

Eglu are really tricky to move, and you will need to move it everyday if chooks are not allowed to be free ranging in your garden. If you have any previous / on going back injuries moving the run will aggravate. Two chooks really is max (unless bantams). Mice and rats can be managed by only feeding what the chickens need, cleaning out any left overs, and being careful what scraps you feed them. My chooks dealt with mice by eating them...whole!

Our neighbours had them, very noisy, eventually we had a polite word & they were very understanding and re-homed the, but it could have been very awkward.

Yes but (1) you will get rats as others have said and (b) don’t get an Eglu unless it is above ground level (chickens like to roost up high) and has a large run. The Flytesofancy poultry protection pen and one of their coops with an automatic pop-hole are far superior in my opinion.

I used to breed chickens a few years ago, so I think I have some sort of expertise.

Mostly it depends on the size of the garden, but also the housing. Yes, Eglus and similar are okay, but only in the "meets the minimum standard" sense. IMO, the perches ore often far too low- for the best air flow and for the birds to feel comfortable there should be about 18" of a gap under the perches. That's without issues regarding temperature as a pp has discussed.

I'm assuming you will have a covered run- will you be able to move that? Chickens will strip any grass or other plants down to bare earth in no time flat. You can't just let them live on mud, so ideally you should move them around frequently. Mine were free range over 10 acres, so it was never a problem, but it will be in an average garden. Not moving them will also encourage a build-up of parasites etc.

If you do go ahead, you will need to be careful about rats. Houses on legs can help with this because the heat doesn't attract them so much and it's harder for the rats to get it. Also, ad lib feeding is a bad idea, you should only feed as much as the chickens will clear up in 10 minutes at each feed.

I think what you are planning is possible, but certainly not the best life for the birds.

I wouldn't because of the rats. Anyone I've known who has ever kept chickens has always given up when the rats got really bold. Maybe on an allotment away from houses?

I have 3 ex battery chickens in an eglu go up. No noise except one hen who celebrates when she lays an egg and this is a lot quieter than nextdoors dog that barks every morning at 5:30am

No smell - eglu coops are plastic and clean really easily.

Chickens (more so ex bats in my experience) make lovely pets. Mine love to be stroked and one loves a cuddle. They even tolerance my 2 year old dn scooping them up.

We have seen the odd rat but the council investigated and found the rats were due to two neighbours putting food out daily for the wild birds and foxes. As long as you don't leave food or water out at night they have nothing to eat and move on.

Definitely go for it - look at rescue places like BHWT and FSFH.

I've had mine for 6 years. No rats in all that time, just put the food away at night. I would let them have the run of the garden in the day then you can secure the coop at night. There are foxes near us but have never been a problem in daylight.

I'm an easy going neighbour.
I wouldn't be thrilled
I wouldn't say anything, but I wouldn't be thrilled

Rats won't be kept in check by cats either - the cats will avoid. Trained terrier maybe!

Chickens = Rats & Foxes in my experience

If you are set on an eglu, why not consider quail instead of chickens? I think you need different/no perching bars, but they are lovely birds and very quiet! I had hundreds and I miss them hugely. I had A&M strain jumbo coturnix quail and their eggs are a bit bigger than the smaller breeds.

Quail. I'm assuming you keep them free range during the day and not just in that little run, which let's face it, is one step up from battery hens and cruel.

If so. They must have scratched up the ground they roam around in and be shitting everywhere.

We kept hens for 20 years. We had rats once, early in and had Council man in. He sorted us out and we followed his advice and kept them rat free. Metal bins, hanging food dispensers, kept henhouse on slabs. We weren't especially fastidious about cleanliness but we didn't have issues.

Oh and we had huge henhouse and while we stared off with 3 we ended up with about 15. We let them have a big run ( large garden) but kept them off our flowerbeds

If you are urban foxes have no fear. I could be cooking in the kitchen with the door open and a chicken 10-12ft away would be attacked. You can’t leave the garden, they are persistent. I gave up in the end as I was fed up of the constant fight. The most they seem to survive is a year, many less. Friends found the same

We never saw any evidence of rats until my NDNs got chickens. Once they got them, the dog started leaving dead rats on the lawn, sometimes one or two a day. One very cold winter, the bloody rats started using the space underneath my kitchen floor as a maternity hospital. We had to wait till they were between litters, have parts of the back wall repointed and all the points where pipes go through the walls sealed to keep the fuckers out.

My NiceNDN (the other side) now has rats living under her house, and under her shed. She had the council rat man round, he told her it was inevitable when neighbours kept poultry.

NDNs started off with 6 hens. They lost a couple to foxes every now and then, but replaced them. They seem to have stopped doing that, and now have just one solitary chook, so we're hoping that she will be the last.

When they had 6 or so, the stench was appalling on hot days and they were really noisy. The solo chook is much more tolerable.

I quite fancied keeping chickens, but living next door to them has really put me off, at least until I get rich and move somewhere with lots of land and no near neighbours. I don't really think it's appropriate in an urban environment.

All that soil used to be grass. Then we got chickens and let them loose and now it looks like that. We are fortunate to have a large garden so their destruction doesn't ruin the whole garden.

@bloodywhitecat my pekins don’t hurt our grass at all, only sign of them is the shit!

We had a pen like this
Then Dh built a wooden chicken coop for the inside, and they had indoor and outdoor roosting poles. He also put a roll of Chicken wires flat on the ground then covered with dirt before putting the pen on top to stop anything burrowing into the pen.
They were very happy spoilt chickens who laid daily.
We didn't get rats as we kept the pen clean, and all the poop went into a compost pile. We didn't have a rooster, and the only noise was when they laid an egg, or tried to sit on a nest someone was using and they argue. Lots less noise than the neighbours dogs.

We also got them when they were a few days old, kept them in a big long box in the garage under a warm light to raise them, the kids were so excited and sat watching them for hours till we got them outside into the pen.

we have kept hens for years now, in town, but they have a big run at the end of a long garden. No problems with rats now since we keep the feed in a metal bin and use one of these feeders which I highly recommend. I think you need to be able to devote space in your garden just to the hens, or they WILL trash the place. High fences needed round the run slso.

We kept chickens in a medium sized garden. The neighbours liked the clucking noise. They said it was comforting. We didn't get rats.

They wake me up with Windows open, I wouldn't be impressed as a neighbour (my sister has them)