Reducing cockerel and other bird noise

Cockerels are not required for hens to lay eggs. Keeping cockerels in an urban environment may lead to complaints of nuisance.

Advice to minimise noise from cockerels (or other birds)

If you do decide to own a cockerel, following these guidelines may reduce the likelihood of complaints:

• locate the cockerel as far as is practicable from neighbouring residential properties.
• keep cockerels in a coop at night to minimise early morning crowing.
• coops should be kept as dark as possible as light entering the coop can trigger the onset of crowing.
• do not let cockerels out until a reasonable hour.
• separate cockerels from broody hens.

These ideas may work in the short term. However, a cockerel will soon learn what the real time is and will probably start crowing again at first light.  Understandably, this is unacceptable for neighbours.

Where more than one cockerel is kept or others are located in the immediate area, this is likely to lead to cockerels competing with each other.  This can increase the amount of crowing considerably.