Rooster Hunting
November 21, 2007 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
I need a few things to get a good night’s sleep.
- * Children who sleep through the night.
- * To drift off before my snoring husband.
- * No cackoling roosters.
On a moral scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being completely immoral and 10 being Jesus-like goodness – just how immoral would it be to hunt the neighbor’s roosters in for my Thanksgiving feast?
Did you know it’s a total myth that roosters crow in the early morning. They actually cackol all night long, all morning long, in the afternoon – well, they never stop really.
I live in a residential neighborhood. Why must my neighbors keep roosters in their yards? To my knowledge they have no chickens for the roosters to impregnate – so what is the deal? Maybe I should call animal control and have them impounded for being in city limits? Where would that lie on a moral scale of 1 to 10?
Here’s my Thanksgiving wish – that they eat their own roosters for Thanksgiving – giving silence back to my night. Maybe they are just so frugal they grow their own turkey. It could happen.
I always try to talk to my neighbors about stuff before involving the authorities.
I tried to nicely talk to one neighbor (twice) about their dog’s constant barking. She told me her dog had the right to bark all day as long as it was between the hours of 9-10. (The right? Uh, your dog has no rights, cause it’s not like a real person.)
I printed out the real law (no barking ever, after three visits from animal control, you lose your animal.) Haven’t heard it’s annoying little bark since.
What did she do have it’s vocal chords removed? How did she get it to stop barking?
See, that’s the problem. I will likely do nothing, except lie awake listening to roosters crow.
I actually am hoping they kill it today and eat it tomorrow.
I left a note for one and he came over and apologized and said they were working on training (it was a new puppy). Still barks occasionally, but I can live with occasional.
Second neighbor (the one who told me her dog had rights) would just leave her dog in the backyard and it got lonely and bored. I believe they take it to doggy day care now. Honestly, I haven’t heard it since.
But I don’t think there are any rooster trainers or day cares out there. Have you tried earplugs?
Yes, but only when sleep training the baby.
Ba dam bam. (I’m going to get hate mail for that for sure.)
I can’t really wear ear plugs all night, what if the baby cries? J and Ainsley both sleep through it. No mommy radar.
The damn things lived through Thanksgiving. And were seen “free range” running through my yard this morning. Yes, I was up – the roosters were crowing!
wtf are you all talking about? I found this link while searching for something else but had to comment. Is this some kind of chicken website?
If (and only if) the rooster keepers are in violation of the zoning laws, then it’s perfectly fair for you to insist that the birds must go. If you bought a home in a “nonlivestock” zone, you have every right to expect it to remain so.
HOWEVER…. If you moved into a livestock zoned neighborhood, it’s your own fault. Such zones exist precisely because livestock & poultry hobbyists DON’T want conflicts with people like you and we DO have a right to live our way of life SOMEWHERE after all.
Some of us were born and raised in livestock areas (and choose, as adults, to stay), precisely because of the livestock zoning. Others went to considerable trouble and expense to move into a livestock area so they could… (wait for it) have livestock. It is completely unfair for newcomers to move into such places and then start hassling the livestock keepers about rooster crowing, donkey braying, the smell of horse manure, etc. You knew what you were moving into.
So… have some ethics: DO NOT move into a livestock zoned neighborhood and then expect other residents to abandon their livestock hobby just because *YOU* have arrived! Choose to live in a non-livestock area instead. That’s what zoning laws are for: so both groups can live the way they wish, in peace.
If (and only if) the rooster keepers are in violation of the zoning laws, then you have every right to insist that the birds go. You bought a home in a “nonlivestock” zone, you have a right to expect it to stay that way.
HOWEVER…. if you live in a livestock zoned neighborhood, then before you start complaining, consider this: the reason why livestock zoning exists is because there are plenty of people who LIKE backyard poultry and livestock. Some (such as certain friends of mine) have gone to considerable trouble and expense to move to livestock zones, while others (including myself) grew up in such areas and elected to return as adults so we could raise our kids around livestock as we were.
Simply put: We live there BECAUSE of the livestock zoning; we have ordered our whole lives around our trust that the livestock zoning rules would be upheld. Therefore, it is totally unethical for newcomers to move into such an area and demand that everyone else give up their way of life just because *they* have now arrived! If that describes you, your only ethical option is to move elsewhere. After all, that’s what zoning laws are for — so both groups of people can live as they wish without bothering each other.
I see your point Rooster folks and thanks for the info. I’ve since moved – before I had to kill that damn bird.
It was a neighborhood, so it should have been a no-rooster zone. But, I live in Texas so who knows.
1. I don’t care if you keep a goat in your yard next door, keep 10 chickens, have 5 dogs and 3 cats – but, roosters CROW loudly in the middle of the night. It’s unneighborly to keep a rooster in a residential neighborhood – what do you need one for anyway?
2. I wasn’t the new neighbor. The rooster was new. I lived there for 3 years before that bird started giving me insomnia.
Gladly I have moved to a different neighborhood. I hope you also live in peace on your farm.
“… roosters CROW loudly in the middle of the night. It’s unneighborly to keep a rooster in a residential neighborhood – what do you need one for anyway?”
Because I LIKE roosters. And I like the sound at dawn (and btw they won’t crow at night if the lights are all turned off. Control light pollution and the roosters will sleep a lot later.) I love jogging through the neighborhood at dawn and hearing various neighborhood roosters crowing along my route. It’s fun.
Also, I like to hatch out my own chickens and of course you can’t breed chickens without the males. No roosters = no baby chicks.
So I make a point in living in a suburb (yes, it’s a suburb, with acre lots) where the zoning laws permit them, and where everyone understands upon moving there that all sorts of noisy critters (roosters, geese, donkeys, etc) are allowed.
As for being unneighborly — I reject that charge entirely. It’s unneighborly for a multimillionare to move into our town, knowing it to be a livestock zone, and start threatening everyone with lawsuits and trying to change the rules within a few weeks of moving in! We fulfilled our neighborly duties ENTIRELY by locating ourselves in the proper zone for what we want to do, he should have respected that. (And in the end, he did… shortly after I starting interceding for him – “love your enemies… pray for those who spitefully abuse you…” — to everyone’s shock he apologized and moved out.)
As to your former home… Unlike here in California, Texas is noted for its lax zoning, so the odds are high that the rooster was actually legal. The realtor who sold the house should have disclosed those facts to you at purchase though. Because, if an area is livestock zoned, it might just by chance be quiet the day you buy in but — precisely because it’s a livestock zone — some guy like me might move in 3 days or 3 years later and bring a rooster with him. Apparently, some realtors don’t tell their clients the full story re: zoning laws & restrictions in their eagerness to make the sale.
YES THEY DO Crow even if the lights are out…they are the stupidist animal God ever created! My inlaws got a rooster ( I live beside them, UNFORTUNATELY) and the thing wakes me up every morning between 3 and 5 am. I am ready to shoot the thing! The inlaws refuse to do anything about it….it runs all over the place doing it’s roosterly thing and I hate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That Rooster was running through my yard regularly so because I live in Texas I was probably within my rights to shoot it.
Not that I have a gun. Poison maybe. (of course I’m kidding.) Perhaps people should remove the voice box of roosters if they live in neighborhoods – like the declaw cats and neuter dogs. I’m just thinking out loud here. Then they could repopulate without keeping the neighbors awake.
I think the rooster was retarded. It crowed in the middle of the day and every hour all night long.
Sorry your millionaire neighbor
sucked.
My neighbor has a 6 roosters in his yard in a coupe. I know exactly how you feel about this situation Tracee! They are waking up my kids all night long. We cannot leave our windows open when we have nice weather, because they are driving us CRAZY! We have talked to our neighbor about this situation last Summer. He said he was going to get rid of them and then actually ended up getting more! I fee it is soooo disrespectful of him to have these things within a residential neighborhood! I’m ready to kill these things. Luckily we found that we have something on him about this…we have a DEED RESTRICTION on the properties that does not allow poultry on the property. The area is agriculturally zones, but the deed restriction overrides this. Ha-Ha! We have to sue him at this point. I can’t wait for the day we win!!
I have to disagree with the person that said Roosters won’t crow if lights are off and it’s dark at night. I live in Pa. in a mobile home park(for 15 years). I have neighbors that moved in the park about a year and a half ago and last year they decided to raise chickens, about 20 feet from my home. They also had roosters that crow all hours of the day and night. Other newer neighbors followed suit and got roosters, chickens and Turkeys. The landowner told them they would have to get rid of them after I complained and my doctor told him how lack of sleep is affecting my health. The bottom line here is, it’s all well and fine if you like chickens and roosters but they belong on a farm not in the middle of a residential area. What ever happened to being courteous and respectful of your neighbors? I should have a right to my health and not have to put up with other’s farm animals in a mobile home park. There are public nuisance laws that deal with this issue and I for one am going to pursue them and the one called disturbing the peace. It’s pretty bad when you can’t live comfortably in your home.
True That Dee.
I have more roosters living in my new residential neighborhood and they literally crow all day long. Light doesn’t prevent crowing.
I have new windows in this house so it’s not keeping me up at night. Thank goodness.
It may be that your neighbor would like to eat his rooster himself, but can’t catch the little devil! I incubated eggs last June and found myself with 14 roosters; you should hear THEM at 5 a.m.! Anyway, I have finally figured out how to catch them and with food prices the way they are, we are definitely going to eat them. For step-by-step instructions on how to catch free-range roosters, direct your neighbor to my Nov. 13 entry on mylittlefarm.blogspot.com Happy sleeping!
This reminds me of a time as an adolescent I thought my neighbor’s rooster would make the perfect subject for my taxidermy correspondence course.
My arm strained holding back the full draw of my 25lb fiberglass recurve bow. The neighbor’s rooster stood sideways to me. Anxiety grew with each passing moment, I couldn’t be sure if his evil eye was watching me – the demonic creature probably was. My throat constricted fearful the cagey rooster would once again slip away. I was down to my last arrow and this one had a broken tip, it had been repaired after a fashion by shoving a 30-30 brass shell casing over the broken tip. My skinny arms attached to my 90lb frame began to ache. This was the best opportunity I had had for weeks hunting this vile bird. He was becoming my nemesis, it had become personal. It was if the rooster now taunted me. He had even allowed my arrow to strike him on several occasions and then seemed to laugh as my arrow merely bounced off his wing protected breast. Now here at the perfect moment I let that arrow fly. It flew as true and as pretty as a swallow catching a nat out of mid air and that arrow hit that rooster right smack on the side of the head snapping its neck killing it instantly. I was elated I finally I had a subject. Two hours later I had that rooster skinned out laying on my family room floor. I was busy scrapping and salting the skin shell when in walked my mother from work. She was so mad at me. She told me to take everything outside immediately and bury it. She said the smell was horrible and wanted to know, “what was I thinking?” Well, I was thinking about salting that shell and eventually stuffing that rooster. I was sure my dad was going to be on my side when he came home. All I had to do was stall the burying and he would help me smooth things over with my mom then I would be back in business. Well, apparently when he came home and walked into the house, the first words out of his mouth were. “What is that horrible smell?” Guess what – I had to bury my excellent kill. I am still bitter – it would have been beautiful.
I live in a neighborhood that, although it’s rural, has a “no livestock” covenant. Two of my five neighbors have chickens anyway. One has only hens, which they keep in a chicken house, and that’s fine. The other has a rooster with their chickens. Not only that, but they let their chickens run all over the neighborhood. I don’t mind _seeing_ them, but the rooster is an awful, noisy nuisance, and comes over to crow outside my window.
So…I don’t mind the “livestock”; what I’d like is a little consideration. Why not keep them fenced, at least?