Training a chicken to stfu

[MrsJacksonBrodieTheSecond]

I have 3 chickens, all nearly a year old. We’ve recently moved from the countryside with an acre of land to a smaller town house with a very average sized garden and bungalows on every side of the garden. I have now realised that one of our chickens is really, really bloody noisy. When she comes down in the morning she’s shouting almost like a cockerel for a good hour, she does some kind of weird scream the whole time she is laying (about 90 minutes), whenever one of the other chickens are laying she runs around yelling and shrieking.

She’s a lot quieter when she’s free to roam the garden, but there’s no way of making our garden secure so I has enough to be out there with them when they’re out. The neighbours are being very tolerant so far but I really need to do something.

I’ve read online about spraying them with water to train them when they make noise. She’s noisiest when laying and I couldn’t spray her when she’s laying as tha seems particularly cruel. Has anyone tried training them to shut up? Or has anyone got any other tips? I think she’s going to have to go in the pot if she carries on as she is.

I’ve shut them in at night for the last couple of nights now. I can still hear her before 5am even though she’s shut in the dark. If anything it sounds even more noisy now as she’s running around in the pitch black and knocking the others over. I thought chickens were supposed to automatically go to sleep if it’s dark?!

I’ve got a water pistol that I’m going to try on her this afternoon each time she screams. I’ll do it again tomorrow and see if there’s any improvement.

@MrsJacksonBrodieTheSecond
Did it work?!

Keeping them shut in the eglu works for us Otherwise we get a 4am racket. It is very antisocial on a housing estate and so I can see how your neighbours are getting p'd off.

Is your eglu letting in the light through the gaps? If so try to lower the light levels by putting a parasol over the coop at night.

Oops just seen this is an old thread!

Passive eggressive!!

If you want quiet calm hens, you need Buff Orpingtons. Different breeds have different characteristics.

Also Orpingtons are very beautiful!

This is the main reason why we got rid of our chickens.

We live in a terrace and deliberately chose a placid, quiet breed.
We stupidly believed everything I read about hens being quiet, particularly the breed we chose so didn’t think there would be an issue.

The noise was ear splittingly loud, we could hear it 6 doors down.
Every morning at around 6am, whenever an egg was being laid and again at night.

Nothing we did would make them stop.
We tried shutting them in the house but you could hear it almost as loudly through the house.

I would never keep chickens again.

Mine were Orpington’s!!!!!!!!!???

And yes they were beautiful.
I loved them but the noise, I lived in fear of neighbour repercussions everyday...

Personally I find that my old reliable double barrelled friend can silence even more than one chicken at a time. I never fail to load both barrels however!