Are they noisy?

[CharleyEmily]

I've always had a fascination about keeping hens and currently doing lots of research. But what I'm wondering is whether I can keep hens with lots of surrounding neighbours? I live in a small terraced house (moderate sized garden) but obviously have close neighbours, including at the bottom of the garden. Are hens a no go in this situation?

You'll just need to close them in their house at night in summer. I just close the door after they go in to bed. If I leave the eglu door open in to their run they start cluking at dawn to get out into the garden. So way up north in summer this is the back of 4am! In the dark they stay happy and quiet until about 7am when I let them out to run about. I'm in the city so put the effort in to keep noise to a minimum.

Some chickens have a noisy egg song (lots of clucking when they come out from laying) but others not so much. You can't do much about that but at least is wouldn't normally be at an antisocial time of day.

I make a point of sharing my eggs with the neighbours regularly and I think that's much appreciated.

Ooh that's exciting that you can manage it in the city. How many do you have? I'd only look to get maybe 2-3.

Think about what your neighbours are like now.

We had one 'noisy' hen out of a group of 3, she'd let us know she wanted out of the house in the morning and then that she'd laid an egg. We are in the suburbs in a terrace with small - 30-40ft gardens - we have noisy seagulls that our neighbours feed but one side complained about the hen. She was a neighbour who did and does complain about anything. Other neighbours were not bothered at all. This one neighbour made me feel very stressed even though the hens were mostly quiet, shut in at night, kept clean etc.. so just be aware that some hens are vocal as are some neighbours!

They're like guard dogs, so will create if someone walks past.

If they're accustomed to being let out, then are put back in the cage, you won't get a minute's peace until they're set free again. So decided where you'll let them go and stick to it or listen to them complain loudly forever after!

Chickens are great, they take themselves off to bed every night, so all you have to do is close their door. Unlike ducks who are proper little wandering nomads!

I love hearing our neighbour's chickens but not the ruddy cockerel! I think chickens are a completely acceptable normal noise and wouldn't worry at all about having them but a cockerel in a built up area is a no-no IMO!

Even if you have 'chatty' chickens they aren't that noisy. Mine will cluck at me when I go to see them, but not very loud. Some make noises when laying but it's only for a short while.

Charley I have 3 on the basis that if one dies it won't be on its own. We have lost one and did manage to introduce a new third hen. I got 3 different types so that the kids can easily tell the difference and the difference between their eggs. The neighbours like that too - I write the hen's name in pencil on eggs I share.

Oh they're lovely

Would you say they're hard work to keep? Expensive?

They are more work than I expected and are quite a bind. Let out early in morning, quick clean at some point in day (sweeping poop and every other day clean out house) and then lock up at night. If I didn't have a keen neighbour who helps when I'm away it would be a total headache. The worst is winter when it gets dark early so I get stressed about getting home in time to shut them in before the urban foxes come out. No single task is too bad or takes that long you just have to be around to do many of them daily.

A large foxproof enclosure would deal with many of my negatives. It wasn't right for our garden.

They can be as cheap or expensive as you like really. I got an expensive house for them at a keen price on Gumtree. I buy expensive (£17 per large bag) organic feed and that lasts about 3 months. You can get cheaper feed. Aubiose/Hemcore for bedding is about £10 a pack And lasts 2/3 months. Sometimes buy veggies for them but more often they get bits and bobs leftover. Small bag of corn every few months -£6ish.