If you think chickens are noisy pets, think again. Unlike the barking and meowing that you often hear around the neighbourhood, many people keep chickens in their backyard without their neighbours even being aware. Chickens are a great addition to any backyard and need not be confined to a farm or rural area.

Who Makes the Most Noise?

If you are worried about waking up at the crack of dawn every morning, or possibly before dawn, you might want to exclude a rooster from your flock. Roosters cannot help but enthusiastically see the morning in, much to the distain of you and your neighbours. While most local councils are happy with residents keeping half a dozen chickens in their backyard chicken coop, they do intervene when your flock is causing a disturbance to the neighbours. Many people also do not realise that a rooster isn’t necessary in the production of eggs! If it’s chicks that you’re after, just wait until one of your hens become ‘clucky’ and obtain some fertile eggs for your ‘mother’ hen to take care of. She won’t mind that they’re not her eggs and with any luck, you’ll have some cute little chicks in no time at all. Otherwise fertile eggs can be place in an incubator. These are generally available for hire, and are quite popular in schools. So if you want a quiet backyard, give the rooster a miss!

Backyard Chicken Cackling

Backyard chickens do make some noise, but nothing compared to roosters. The sound of a chicken is known as a cackle which is basically an excited little sound to announce to the world that the chicken has just laid an egg. This is quite a pleasant sound and is a nice little alarm for you to know when your fresh eggs have just been laid. Many people love the ‘rural’ sound that chickens make.

If a Fox is Near…

If chickens feel that they are in danger, they will let you know. If a neighborhood cat or dog or a hungry fox are lurking around your chicken coop, it’s likely that one of your hens, if you don’t have a rooster, will warn all the other chickens of the danger. Our smallest but bravest chicken has taken on this role, since our rooster was taken by a fox. She’s a brave chicken, having survived several fox attacks in our previous chicken coop. Our current one is very fox proof, but she still let’s us know if there’s a fox in the area.

Apart from roosters crowing and hens getting excited after egg laying or in the case of danger, these creatures really are very quiet. You will have many more neighbours complain about cats and dogs lurking the neighbourhood than you will about chickens in their chicken coop. Neighbors are usually also quite happy to look after your pets while you are away because they know that some eggs will be coming their way. While you may not have thought of chickens as backyard pets, there’s really no going past them in terms of cost, maintenance and their ability to lay an organic egg for the breakfast table!

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Category: Pets
Keywords: Chicken coop, backyard poultry, chicken house, hen house, chook tractor, chook pen