My neighbor two doors over had chickens. They let them roam free. They roamed all over my property and dug around in my compost pile and herb garden. There were five of them, all different colors. I named them Fricassee, Coq au Vin, Adobo, Jerk, and Marsala. My husband would gently shoo them away, "C'mon, sweeties, time to go home." My approach was somewhat different, "Hey! WTF do you think you're doing? " "Get the f*ck outta there or I'll throw you in a pot!"
One morning, we were having a new water softener installed. The guys were working in the basement when we heard screams. My husband went downstairs to see what was up, and the guys said there was a chicken in the window well. We went outside to check the window well, and to our surprise, we found a big nest with dozens of eggs! We checked another window as well and, sure enough, found another nest full of eggs. Evidently, unbeknownst to us, Marsala was looking for a private, quiet place to lay her eggs every morning. When I showed the nests to my next-door neighbor, she said, "I'd see the chicken walking over to your place every morning and wonder where she was going."
After that, whoever was up first in the morning would check to see if there was an egg. "Did ya check?" LOL! Sometimes Marsala would be in there trying to lay an egg. She'd be all fluffed up and hunkered down, but occasionally her neck would be stretched straight up like she was having trouble getting it out.
Then, the chickens started to disappear, one by one, until only Marsala was left. Then we didn't see her anymore. After a few weeks, we saw a bunch of "new" white chickens roaming all over our property. One morning, I looked out an upstairs window to discover a mass of white feathers and a pile of chicken remains in my neighbor's backyard. I was horrified. Evidently, a predator had wiped out the lot of them!
I did some research on chicken keeping and discovered that the people who kept the chickens had no idea what they were doing. They had an open-topped chain-link enclosure on top of a gravel driveway at the back of their property, and that's where they were housing the chickens. That's no way to care for chickens! They need a coop (house), preferably one that's up off the ground, heat lamps, and to be protected from predators. After the last bunch was massacred, they didn't get any more chickens. Thank God. Idiots.
I like chickens and don't have an objection to neighbors keeping them if they do so properly.
Bella
