Backyard Chickens in Canberra

They must be tidy eaters your chickens, the ones i’ve seen are quite messy.

As for the smell I think we are all ok if the neighbours fertilise the garden a few times a year with dynamic lifter but farmyard smells and noise 365 days a year is a bit different.

Dont the mice and rats also get attracted to the litter, feathers, moist warm bedding and indeed, the eggs ?

breda said :

There are very good reasons why people who have a choice do not usually keep poultry in suburbia, and why the keeping of same is broadly inversional to GDP per capita.

You do, of course, have a research paper you can cite to support your claim?

breda said :

They crap everywhere, they are noisy, they smell, and they attract rats, mice and snakes. And yes, I speak from experience.

Chooks do crap everywhere, which is why I have them in my garden. Much better having live chooks than importing a pile of “Dynamic Lifter” every now and then. Chooks are the best slow release fertiliser systems available on the market.

As for the attracting rats and mice, that’s a problem easily overcome by storing feed in sealed containers, rather than leaving piles of food around that take the chickens days to eat. Food that is lying around uneaten is what leads to other vermin visiting your property.

It would be better to address your own untidiness rather than blame the vermin on the chooks.

Properly kept chickens should not be smelly, and you shouldn’t have any vermin apart from the omnipresent crested pigeons and mynas – and even those can be avoided by feeding your chooks in the chook pen, and having the chook pen fenced on top as well as all sides.

For folks interested in learning more, I’d suggest visiting the awesome “Backyard Poultry” site.

I love chickens! I’d take the cheerful clucking of chickens over the fenceline than the relentless bark of a badly behaved bogan staffy any day! Oh and they can come and crap in my garden any day .. the plants love it 🙂

speckledhen said :

some folk put their boys in rooster ‘boxes’ which can be effective.

I’m fetchin to put my neighbours rooster in a box. A few feet underground should be the most effective.

Chickens, we don’t want your stinking chickens…..

(apologies to Mel Brooks)

breda said :

There are very good reasons why people who have a choice do not usually keep poultry in suburbia, and why the keeping of same is broadly inversional to GDP per capita.

They crap everywhere, they are noisy, they smell, and they attract rats, mice and snakes. And yes, I speak from experience.

You are joking aren’t you? Your experience must have been a bad one.

Chooks are great. They eat all our food scraps, make excellent ferterlizer for the vege garden and produce enough bright yellow eggs to keep us and all our neighbours happy. High GDP or otherwise!

And there are no specific rules relating to the keeping of roosters in suburbs in Canberra. There are however standard noise regulations and neighbours can complain about crowing roosters based on those regs.

But well cared for chooks in a suitable enclosure that are fed and watered correctly are almost the perfect (productive) pet.

Fiona said :

So, how do I stop the neighbours chooks from waking me because they are next to my bedroom 🙁

Lots of people in our area (including immediate nieghbour) have chooks, including the odd rooster. I far prefer the odd bitof rooster crowing that incessant barking from a dog.
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What nonsense.

Taking the last first, the fact that there are annoying dogs has nothing to do with justifying the crowing of roosters at 4am. Off with their heads, I say!

There are very good reasons why people who have a choice do not usually keep poultry in suburbia, and why the keeping of same is broadly inversional to GDP per capita.

They crap everywhere, they are noisy, they smell, and they attract rats, mice and snakes. And yes, I speak from experience.

Fiona said :

So, how do I stop the neighbours chooks from waking me because they are next to my bedroom 🙁

Lots of people in our area (including immediate nieghbour) have chooks, including the odd rooster. I far prefer the odd bitof rooster crowing that incessant barking from a dog.

Fiona – bugg@r – do they have arooster in the burbs? Hens will only make a racket (small) when they lay, which is typically not early morning. I’d be guessing neighbours have boys, which is…ahem… not allowed in the burbs. Maybe a friendly word – some folk put their boys in rooster ‘boxes’ which can be effective.

Thanks Snarky… something weird has happened to my account and I have reported it to yahoo. In the meantime – thespeckledhen@live.com.au – cheers 🙂