Chickens and deeds

[nikirushka]

My house is rented privately from my sister (no agent involved).

The deeds state that I am not allowed to keep fowl or other livestock, but I have no limits on 'domestic pets' - so I can have as many dogs etc as I want.

How enforceable is that? My sister has no problem with whatever I want to keep - I would like chickens for their eggs/meat but I don't want to fall fowl (no pun intended) of the deeds down the line.

[Mattylad]

I would ask, if you were in contravention of your deeds, who would enforce them?

[nikirushka]

Well that's what I'm wondering! As far as I can see no-one - it was a council house originally but has been private-owned for over 21 years now (5 by my sister).

I just want to be sure

[Treeman]

If you have neighbours, the might not like it, they will come here and someone will tell them to inform the council that your activities are attracting rats.

[Rowan]

One could of course NOT be raising chickens specifically for eggs and meat

There are many 'fancy' breeds of chickens, that just incidently lay eggs and of course may need culling to control numbers (waste not to eat them!) - they make great pets and can be shown at bird shows

That's how a neighbour of mine squashed the suggestion that she was raising poultry for eggs and meat - our deed state that we may not run a poultry farm

The reason was that the land had been part of a local poultry farm who, understandably did not want any competition - however the farm is long gone

Complaints about cockeral crowing were somewhat limp when it was shown that there were no cockerals over six weeks old on site - amazing how some people do not know the difference between the gentle clucking announcing an egg laid and a cockeral at full early morning crowing

[nikirushka]

I get on well with the neighbours fortunately - one I know wouldn't mind, the other I will check with of course but as they are turning their entire garden into an alottment at the moment I'm not too worried! Also I would imagine their young girls would enjoy watching the chickens (the area I want to put them is near the fence, which is made of aviary mesh so they could watch the chooks all day).

Neither neighbour has had an issue with me having 8 large dogs (and I often hear the above neighbours talking to them!) so I imagine chickens would not be a problem...

[jonahinoz]

I kept horses, donkeys, sheep, pigs, chicken and ducks in my garden. OK, the horses and donkeys moved back and fore from a few acres I had nearby, but the garden was in a residential area.

My neighhbours loved them all, even the Maran cockeral that crowed at 2AM every morning. Nowt so strange as folk.

[hch4971]

As I understand it (but I don't have the details so you may have to google) there was some law brought in that overides any covenants in deeds to say that anyone and everyone is entitled to keep hens in their garden so that they have access to fresh eggs. This does only apply to hens though and doesn't cover keeping cockerels.

[nikirushka]

Any kept for meat (from what I've been told by experienced keepers) would likely be at slaughter age before any cockerels became apparent, and I've no idea how to censored chicks So that should be ok. Intrigued by the idea of that law though, I'll have a nosey into that, thanks.

[Mojisola]

Our cockerel chicks started to crow well before they were big enough to eat.