How to Talk to Your Neighbors About Raising Backyard Chickens

When you decide to raise backyard chickens, you’re not the only one who is impacted by that decision. Your neighbors will also be impacted. This is especially the case if you live in a city or suburb where you live right next to each other.

So, before you start building your coop and gathering supplies, you should have a chat with each of your neighbors to ensure they’re OK with you raising chickens.

Listen to their concerns and provide solutions

When you first broach the subject with your neighbors, ask them if they have any concerns. Listen attentively and don’t interrupt. Let them air out any grievances or worries they may have. Once they’re done, provide solutions to each of their concerns. For instance, if your neighbors are worried about your chickens wandering onto their property, tell them that you will be building extra fencing to keep your chickens in your yard.

Warn them about hen noise

Most cities and suburbs do not allow roosters due to the noise. However, hens can still make some noise themselves. Your neighbors may not even be aware of this problem, so be sure to bring it up if they haven’t. Avoiding this issue will not help, since your neighbors might complain once you already have your chickens, and this could lead to bigger problems. Promise your neighbors that you’ll take steps to limit hen noise as much as possible.

Share your eggs

Even if you’ve talked to your neighbors and get the OK from them, there are bound to be instances where they get irritated with your backyard chickens. To keep them happy, it’s not a bad idea to share some of your fresh eggs with them. This way they are more likely to deal with any minor inconveniences because they get something out of it.

Once you get the all-clear from your neighbors, it’s time to start building your flock. To get started, head to Chickens for Backyards to find a wide array of chicken breeds and supplies.