Check with animal control od county zoning office. I live in PG Co just outside the beltway
my neighbor has had chickens and now has ducks. also raises bees but I believe they are zoned rural residential
Mary

In Fairfax County you have to have 2 acres to have chickens or other fowl. Alas. Don't know, but suspect, that Montgomery County would be similar.

I doubt they would help keep the deer away since they go to roost at dusk, just the time the deer are becoming most active. Plus, chickens are not exactly predators on deer like canines are so it's doubtful they would scare them away even if they were awake. Keep thinking though. Maybe you will come up with the "perfect" pet that will help with the garden AND keep the deer at bay. That would surely make a lot of gardeners deliriously happy and make you famous! LOL

about 40 years ago we lived in PG county and had banties. Small but certainly NOT unobtrusive. The neighbors complained but direct to us. Not to animal control or any other authority. One night we had a major ruckus when an opposum tried to steal the eggs from a nesting hen. We took all of them back to my Dad's farm after that.
As they used to say, you can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.

G'Day!
To fox deer, guinnae fowl might work; in South America that are used as watch dogs. Nice big eggs, too. i've also known pea fowl to be territorial enough to chase dogs, but they also roost at dusk.

When i was in the Peace Corpse, my host family had chickens. They roosted under the hut and crowed at all hours of the night - about two foot below the beds on the other side of a bamboo slat floor. Not fun.

- Consider the placement of your chickenhouse and run carefully! Maybe inquire over on the Farm Life forum to learn about "low-crow" varieties?

- (You know about using a sort of floorless portable cage to set them up in different parts of the garden on different days, so they can eat the bugs, right? Turn bugs into eggs!)

- Happy gardening,
-vlad

My neighbors two houses over had them when I moved in five years ago. This is a suburban neighborhood, not really what you'd call farmland. The houses are about forty years old and it's a quiet cul-de-sac. I loved hearing the chickens and the roosters. I was surprised to hear some other neighbors further away had complained about it. I'm not really sure if there is any law against it.

Check with zoning and even if it's ok with zoning you still might want to check with your neighbors.

My neighbors illegally kept chickens for a while a couple of years back. Had they actually "kept" them I might not have minded despite the zoning violation, but they didn't. They just let them run loose through the neighborhood. Of course, they primarily congregated in my yard where they made a ton of noise and destroyed several plants. They were finally all offed by a combination of another frustrated neighbor's shotgun, dogs, owls, foxes and cars.

There are no bad chickens. Only bad owners.

Roosters crow a lot, and not just when the sun rises. I think your neighbors would not be happy.

Definitely check out your local zoning laws. Nothing is sadder than setting up for & getting chicks/chickens & then being forced to get rid of them.

Have seen it - & it's way sad.

When I grew up in a major metropolitan area no one would question the old polish or italian people that wanted chickens in their yard and no one complained about the crowing. We loved our neighbors, respected them and were able to forgive their ways. Weve lost something we will not get back.

Orchid girl, are you serious? So crowing is considered a nuisance noise in some areas? That's like not wanting to hear birds singing. (And I grew up with roosters and chicks). How could anyone seriously complain about a rooster crowing or a hen clucking, when the truly horrid noises aren't legislated out: motorcycles, televisions, parents screaming at children, lawn mowers, incessantly barky dogs, horns honking in driveways, and loud music.

Unfortunately - VERY true.

Although I locked my chickens up in their coop at night to avoid predation, another advantage was that it cut down the volume of my rooster crowing his brains out at 4:30 in the morning. I mean really - could you really blame someone in a residential/suburban area complaining? I myself had a 2-1/2 hour commute into the city & I hated it like the dickens. And they were MY chickens - lol!

And that wasn't all, when my dad would use the bathroom in the middle of the night, the bathroom light would shine into the coop window & that too would set the rooster off crowing, regardless of time. Dad loved the eggs, so learned to pee in the dark - LOL!!!!

But seriously - if you're in a truly residential area, & if chickens are in fact allowed, you might want to just keep a rooster-less flock. You'd still get terrific eggs & your neighbors would be much happier.

I think I've hatched a plan of vengeance against the aforementioned noise pollution. Here chickie chickie chickie chickie chick chick chickie.

Many thanks to the many of you who have offered your advice and opinions. My husband's response when I brought this subject up was it would be him or the chickens, he DOES NOT WANT CHICKENS. So now what? I would not want to lose one to the other LOL! Maybe I need to make friends with someone nearby who raises chickens? I'm still trying to find space for my unruly raspberry canes (my neighbors were not happy with my morning glory/climber obsession phase).

Move! I did and now my kids are trying (trying being the operative word) to build a chicken coop. We have the space for a huge veggie garden (if only I knew how to grow veggies) and almost any animal that we could imagine, although the kids did mention a few that they will have to visit at the zoo. My DH is a city boy and don't really want chickens but then again he didn't want cats either until after they started snuggling up to him during his evening 'down' time, he also didn't know what to think of buying a small farm but now it's HIS tractor?!? Think of all the extra gardening area you would have.
Lettssee
PS there are a few small farms for sale over here on the eastern shore. - AHHhh the quiet life.

The people my sister bought her house from, in Rockville, were raising chickens in the back yard. This is very suburban, no "rural-residential" about it, probably 1/4-acre lots, interspersed with townhouses.

I'm like you, dying to do it! No husband to tell me no, but at least I'll wait till I'm through with grad school so I can devote the proper attention to them.

In the meantime, I'm going to take over some of a neighbor's rabbits. No eggs, but good meat, and poop for the garden.

Lettsee, what part of the shore are you on??
I'm way south, almost into the Bay.

I live in Baltimore County. As far as I know, you aren't allowed to raise chickens here. There is, however, a flock of beautiful golden-brown hens & a rooster living a few blocks away from me - I hear the rooster crow every morning. The neighbors tell me that those birds were "grandfathered" in, as the people who own them raised chickens before the new law went into effect. I'm grateful. They make the neighborhood more interesting.

Cecilia, Your post got me into research mode. If you have an acre in Baltimore county, you can have chickens!!! So I just need to buy that empty lot next to me, I already have tree planting rights there...

§ 13-7-311. HOUSING OF FOWL AND LIVESTOCK.
(a) Exception. This section does not apply to Asian pot-bellied pigs.

(b) Prohibited. A person may not house or maintain within a residential area less than 1 acre in size:

(1) Fowl, including chickens, ducks, and geese;

(2) Small livestock, including pigs, sheep, and goats; or

(3) Large livestock, including horses, cows, and ponies.

(c) Special requirement for large livestock. A person housing or maintaining large livestock within a residential area may not exceed one animal per acre.

I have to compliment you. I raised rabbits for years - but just for pets & the fabulous manure.

Although I have enjoyed eating rabbit in restaurants, I simply can't kill & eat anything I've raised & named - lol - not to mention "bunnies".

Guess I'll always be one of those hypocrites who prefers their meat in plastic-wrapped packages from the store (although I must say that I do buy meat from several local organic farms).

Cynthia, I don't think anybody in Lansdowne owns an acre lot, so I guess my neighborhood's chickens really have been grandfathered in.

The chickens patrol all the yards on their block. The neighbors don't seem to mind.

Hey treble, did you see yesterday's W Post? Page H7. She recommends ducks especially: "It is likely that you could keep a few ducks in your backyard without anyone being the wiser. But you didn't hear that from me." You didn't hear it from me either, hey! *wink*

I find that advice very suspect. I had 3 ducks (White Pekins) for awhile that were noisier by far than my whole flock of chickens. They'd start squauk/quacking at 5 a.m. & didn't stop until after dark. I finally found them a "Petting Farm" home to give my very tolerant neighbors a break.

Looks like I am the only person here who does not like chickens. My neighbors had chickens (twice) a few years ago. The law in Montgomery Co. is that you can have chickens as long as the coop is either 100 ft(or 150 ft, I can't remember now) from your property line. In my neighborhood there is no house that has enough land to have that. We have 1/5 of acre lots. If you want chickens, move to the farther out suburbs. The presense of chickens in the neighborhood did not make it feel rural, it made it feel more like a third world neighborhood. Housing Code enforcement is the place to call if you don't like chickens and your neighbor gets them.

As for the ducks, the same neighbor got some baby ducks after the two episodes of chickens. They were so cute, one came over and got stuck on our window well. We returned it but they were only "secured" in a chain link fence, which does not contain them. Last we saw them, they were heading over to the neighbor who has a Jack Russel Terrier. They were never found again.

My first grader brought a couple of chicks home last year after a school hatching project. We were very excited about them, until they both turned out to be roosters! ARGH! The good news is that you can buy chickens that are guaranteed to be hens and you DON'T NEED ROOSTERS to get EGGS. :-) The chickens themselves aren't all that noisy, fortunately. Of course, hens don't keep anything away, if that's your aim.

My neighbor has guinea hens to keep bugs away. They are about the ugliest birds I ever saw (think mini-turkey vultures) but they make the funniest noises you ever heard. They run around together in a flock and the first time I heard them in my yard they sounded exactly like a bunch of old ladies giggling their heads off.

-Molly

Yes - you can get chickens "guaranteed" to be all hens, but ONLY if you order one of the "sex-linked" breeds. Sex-links are multi-purpose (both meat & egg) breeds that are different colors at hatching - roosters one color, females another. However, if you ever see Sex-Links for sale at your local feed or farm store, do know ahead of time what you're buying. One of our local stores had them for sale around Easter & folks automatically thought they were buying hens. However, all of the chicks they were selling were the roosters - with no sign admitting that. Do some research before buying.

If you're not buying Sex-Links, but ordering pullets/hens from a chick hatchery, also be aware that all reputable hatcheries will tell you upfront that the sexing rate is at 90-95% accuracy, which means that you could still very well end up with a few roosters.

I live in urban Rockville, MD. My usually very docile black lab killed a neighbor's pet chicken. Would anyone know where I can find a replacement chicken? Please, I'd like to get this behind me and they promised to keep it penned up.
Thanks

Check the local fairs -- I think Monkey Cty's is going on now -- normally exhibitors sell off birds at fair time, and if not, you can get ctc info for folks with specific breeds. Four-H is another good resource.

But what's a chicken doing in ROCKVILLE?

Lynn

luvlab1

Thanks for the heads up re your lab and the chicken. my almost blind old lab just died and we just got a very active, very fast, two year old choclate from Lab Rescue. I guess I'd better keep a close eye on him as the neighbor three houses down has a rooster and a few chickens.

I'd definately forget the ducks (loud and very smelly) and the guineas. Guineas will wake the dead 24/7. If you just can't convince DH about the hens, what about something else like game fowl? Check with the MD Game Commission (call them, then ask them to send the literature in writing) but usually they allow you to keep chukars, pheasant, and quail as long as you don't breed them and sell them (which you would need a propagation permit). I would not get peacocks, as they're almost like the guineas. Keeping some sort of fowl in a closed coop might satisfy your need to keep something different, and you can get eggs.

Well, I don't have chickens, but I'm planning to when I get back from Iraq (something about being in the desert has made me long for green grass and a semi-agricultural lifestyle).

I'll probably start by calling the Health department in my town which also handles animal control. Make sure I'm not breaking any laws.

In the event some smarty local politician wants to make a case for it, I can talk a local reporter to write a story for the the paper around election time "Councilman vs. the chicken!" Perhaps get someone to draw a very embarassing picture of him/her in the boxing ring with a hen.

His/her political rivals will probably latch onto it. "Can't stop drugs in the schools, but will use valuable city resources to fight a chicken!" All very predictable behavior among politicos.

Funny. Still, having had some first hand experience with out of control poultry, I'd be voting for the guy in favor of getting rid of the chickens. ;-)

Just read this post and got a laugh or two. I've emailed the lab chicken-killers owner that I can supply her/him with a suitably fuzzy baby chicken for the neighbor.
I agree with the folks above who say that a chicken won't keep ANYTHING away and they will attract all kinds of things that you hadn't thought about like skunks, raccoons, opossums and rats looking to dine on your birds their eggs and their feed grains. Besides that chickens STINK! Much more than you can possibly imagine. They will cheerfully eat bugs and your flower blossoms--mine are especially fond of impatiens blossoms. To get to the bugs, of course, they will first need to scratch all of the mulch out of your beds so that they can find the bugs. They are not too good at remembering where the lot lines are either and your neighbors mey not especially appreciate their rearrangement of their flower beds.
And in order to use the manure, you really need to compost the manure first or it will burn your plants and you will not be very far ahead.
I would be willing to bet that you can find a source of good organic eggs and there are usually farmers within a reasonable distance who will happily sell or give you manure to use in your garden. Some of those manures can be used directly such as goat, sheep, llama and alpaca without being composted first. Your really should compost rabbit droppings too before using them on your plants.
Just had to add my 2 cents worth. I am happy to share the output of my beasties with anyone who wishes to come to the farm for it.
spiderwoman