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Comment by leejoramo | Hacker News Reader

This is a project I have long thought to try. Relatively simple task, but requires Designing a reliable system and sourcing quality components

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and chickens ...

and land

Technically I could keep chickens as long as I keep five or less. Realistically my neighbors would hate me. Also, there's a lot of foxes in my area and I don't think that my five chickens would be around all that long.

As for neighbors, just don't get a rooster. Hens do make some noise but they're not bad at all.

As for foxes, you can use a mobile coop+run. Move it once per day to provide fresh grass and distribute the fertilizer byproduct.

Yeah, if I did it I'd want the area to be fenced in because one of my neighbors is nosy. It's a 1/4 acre plot, so not exactly a huge amount of land.

I know that my neighbors down the street have chickens because I occasionally hear them, but their yard is completely fenced in. I only know them well enough for casual greetings when we see them in passing, and there's a language barrier preventing more in depth conversation.

Do you think there is a reason they are getting away with ignoring the rules? Maybe you could too - just ask the neighbours first?

They might not know that the rules exist at all -- you have to go looking to find them. I'm sure that they're getting away with it because nobody cares and the yard is fenced in and nobody sees the chickens and because none of their next door neighbors care.

I don't talk to them much besides "hello", as communication is difficult since they don't speak much English and I don't speak much (any) Swahili.

The coop is somewhere in here: https://i.imgur.com/t6FqF6G.png

My neighbors across the street (3 miles from downtown of a medium size american city) have chickens and most days I forget they are there. I grew up with chickens as well, and they really aren’t a nuisance. We also have foxes and uh, the time I did’t forget they were there was when I heard a strange yowling at dawn, clearly a chicken and yet so different from their normal noises. I assume that was due to a fox.

Yeah, hens aren't loud or smelly, so as long as you take measures to curb issues with pests they attract, they're fine. Just don't get a rooster.

> I could keep chickens as long as I keep five or less

Is that a specific chicken clause in a contract somewhere or a general head of livestock / pets clause.

5 chickens != 5 dogs != 5 horses

I looked up the ordinance, and I was wrong about a few things. Livestock or poultry may be kept provided that there are no more than 4. So I was wrong about the limit -- it's less than five and not five or less.

Also:

  * I need to have a 1 acre parcel, and I have only a bit over 0.25
  * It needs to be 25 feet from all property boundaries and fenced in, which limits placement options

So my options, for this plot, are nil.

I don't recall the 1 acre limit when I looked before, so I'm wondering if this has been updated.

I have 12 on a 1/2 acre plot, about 2/3rds of which is backyard they can access (so call it 1/3 acre of roaming). That amount seems more than ample, though these are pretty bougie chickens. Four in even 1/8 acre should be fine.

I shall forward your message to my township officials. :-)

Seriously, though, I have to abide by the local ordinances.

The minimum square footage per “cage free” chicken is only 1.5 sq ft, (in California, which passed a ballot initiative to increase it to that number)

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_12,_Farm_Anim...

So, 1/8 acre could hold 3,630 “cage free” chickens, in theory (I am not condoning this).

In you don’t need much space to keep chickens happy. However, they produce a lot of dust, and can’t be kept in a house.

> However, they produce a lot of dust

This was actually the most surprising thing about first time chicken ownership. I was expecting the poop, I wasn't expecting the dust and the dust bathing. They will pick one or more parts of the yard and crater it and use it for their dust baths, meaning that soil will transport elsewhere and you'll need to replenish the sand. You can kinda suggest where they do it (they prefer overhung spots that don't get rain, so it stays dry and dusty) but like cats and cat beds, they decide where to do it. I intended the under-coop space to be used for this, but they decided they like under my gazebo-tent was preferable.

I actually live downtown in a small city. We have a small backyard but enough room for hens. They make minimal noise, much less then dogs. And they not make cause any unpleasant odors.

In the 9 years we have had the hens, no one has complained. However many people bring their kids by to watch them through the fence.

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