Chicken coop issues - are chickens noisy pets?

If you're thinking of getting chickens but are worried about what the neighbours will say about the noise, don't worry. Chickens are in fact reasonably quiet backyard pets that cause much less of a disturbance than cats or dogs.

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!

Backyard chicken cackling

Having chickens for many years, you may be surprised to know that it took me some years before I realised why my chickens were making some gentle sounds at certain times in the day. It was not a fox alarming the chickens, but merely my chickens need to let everyone know that they'd laid an egg. Chickens let off an excited cackle when they've laid their daily egg. This sound is quite pleasant and helpfully lets you know when to go and collect your eggs!

If danger is lurking...

If something is threatening your chickens, such as a fox or neighbourhood cat or dog, your chickens are likely to get excited, but not in a good way. Our smallest, but oldest chicken has decided to take on the rooster’s role of warning all the other chickens of danger, since we don’t actually have a rooster. She has survived several fox attacks when our chicken coop was not quite fox proof. When a fox comes by, she lets off lots of noise which is great, as it lets us know that something is wrong. Fortunately our chicken coop is fox proof, but she doesn’t obviously realise that.

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.

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