Hi chook lovers,
New to the board and would be very grateful for some advice.
First, I might not have any chickens, but think the principle of zero food miles, fresh eggs and happy chickens is great, whatever you might suspect after what I say next!
A few months ago my neighbour got some bantams - initially two roosters and three hens, now just the one rooster and the hens. We have a right of way through our back gate over her garden which we need to get bikes and bins out etc. I live in a village, and both our gardens are backed by a dry stone wall over which there are meadows. (Yes, it's lovely, and I know I'm lucky!) Although I'd prefer her to have asked our views before getting them, wish she didn't leave corn cobs out overnight, the rooster was a bit quieter and that it didn't go for my ankles when I push my bike through her garden, I can live and let live about most of that.
What's now started happening several times a day over the last couple of weeks is that the bantams are now coming over the gate and wall into my garden. They have already had the grass seed I had optimistically put down a few weeks ago, and are getting bolder and bolder as they head down the garden towards the veg patch. Twice when I have tried to shoo them out the rooster, who has become accidentally separated from his ladeez, has been over doing the chivalry and really flying at me. Now I try to coax them with a long pole held horizontally. I don't mind doing this occasionally but daily, let alone hourly is getting rather much. I'm also worried given the rooster's behaviour about my 7 year old nephew visiting later in the week.
My neighbour is very difficult to talk to at the best of times (she doesn't like the right of way, and to give you just a taster threatened me with her solicitor before she even moved in three years ago, and has made three separate legal claims against us just this year all of which our solicitor says are nonsense). Her garden is pretty small and the chooks initially confined to a small part of it near the wall. I have however noticed that she has kept the gate open to the rest of her garden and is trying to coax them through there when she feeds them in the morning, so I do think she recognises there's an issue.
We were forced to put our gate into the small gap between the two properties after she moved in or she would have put on one herself (on the boundary we own) and lock it! We are concerned she would use this as an excuse to erect more barricades. We don't think we should have to put chicken wire over our waist high fence/ back wall just so that she can keep chickens in a small space. It's a narrow gap and we have enough trouble using it already.
If you have any advice about anything I can do short of barracading the garden to encourage them to go elsewhere, that would be really appreciated. I don't really want to risk making any suggestions to her, but if you do have any ideas about what she could do that would be great too.
Apologies for the length of the post, and being literally from the other side of the fence. Just want as good a neighbour relationship as possible AND chooks out of the garden!
Demelza