With a "very viglilent home owner's association" I wouldn't get your hopes up. I can sympathize with your wanting chickens but most of the communities around here like you're talking about wouldn't even dream of allowing chickens. Heck some previously rural towns don't allow them in your backyard anymore. Of course you're best to just ask the question, maybe prepare a presentation to educate the people on the board.

If you get permission there are lots of really cute coop designs perfect for a small flock of hens, if you google "chicken coop designs" you'll get a better idea of what other folks have done.

-Good luck :)

-Sheila

Here is a link that might be useful: Here's a few ideas

I would suggest that you not ask permission. These organizations are inevitably run by anal retentive Nazis. They will say no. Get three bantam-size hens --no roosters-- and with the use of innocent looking natural screens like hedges, you may be able to run a stealth operation.

Good luck. Power to the people!

Power to the people - ha ha ha.

You know, if it doesn't say anything in your massive book of guidelines specific to hens, check with code enforcement and animal control where you live, build a small coop to contain them in the backyard and go for it. We have 5 hens in the city, but we have no home owners' association. The old biddy across the street has declared war, but we have the blessings of animal control and code enforcement since we have no roosters. In the end, this gal has one foot in the grave and we win. Our kids love love love their chickens, and we're ready for battle if anyone else wants to yip yap about non-existant city ordinances.

Good advice here so far! If you Google 'keeping chickens in the city' you'll find a ton of pages with great advice also. :)

I live in suburban Los Angeles and have a backyard flock. I have a coop for them at night and they roam the backyard by day. I do not allow them to jump fences or wander the neighborhood, and I keep the coop strictly clean so there is never an odor problem. You may have to trim the girls' wings at first, when they are young and are all horsepower and wing and not heavy enough to stay grounded. I always trim a new flock members' wings, by the time they have grown out again the bird has learned where it lives and doesn't roam. Make your yard the most atttractive to the chickens with lots of fresh food, water and nice nests and they'll prefer to stay home. Banties are the worst for wanting to explore, and as a general rule I trim anyone's wings whom I catch flying like a freakin' eagle. :)

Usually the problem is in your cities zoning laws, and the issues with chickens fall under the noise ordinances (roosters). Also they must be housed so many feet from houses, etc. Some cities will be OK with a small number of hens, say 3, but will say 'No' to roosters because of the crowing. In my opinion hens are just as noisy or noisier during the day with all the 'Hey, I laid an egg!' cackling, but roos tend to start crowing in the pre-dawn hours. One thing you can do is to make sure and handle your birds daily--get them super tame and used to being picked up and petted. The less you allow them to run wild, the more they'll want to stay home, and if they DO hop a fence, they will be MUCH easier to catch. This also helps if they become sick or injured--trying to catch and help a wild chicken is nearly impossible.

A few things you can do is check the home owners association guidelines to see if they specifically mention chickens one way or another. Check the cities zoning laws and ask the people at city hall if the homeowners association laws take precedence over city laws--I doubt if they do, so it may be that if the city says yes and the association says no--tough luck for the association! If neither one says no to chickens, talk to your neighbors--get them to sign a petition saying that they wouldn't have a problem with a small number of hens (offering fresh eggs and letting their kids come over to see the chickens is a great help in this area!)

You can also see if you can get your home certified as a backyard wildlife habitat (check out the National Wildlife Federation's site), that might help protect the chickens. If you can use the birds in an educational manner (take them to local elementary schools and give a talk) that might help protect them, too since the animals are being used in an educational manner. You can also try to get them certified as therapy animals (you and your birds get some training, then you take them around to hospitals and visit patients) through the Delta Society (I'm going to see about this for some of my chickens).

http://www.deltasociety.org/

So even with draconian statues, there may be ways around it, some kind of umbrella of protection for your birds. Be as sweet as pie to your neighbors and make good friends with all of the households surrounding yours and you'll most likely have no trouble from them by keeping chickens. :)

Good luck!

Velvet ~:>

How well do you know your neighbors? I lived in a Chicago suburb and added chickens to my pet menagerie. Accidentally ended up with two roosters and three hens instead of five hens -- imagine my concerns! It turned out that the neighbors were mostly a little bit older people who had fond memories of farm life and were delighted for the crowing and occasional flash of feathers!

One day I looked out to see a police car parked in the alley right by the coop. I pulled out my binoculars and discovered the officer was laughing -- I would guess someone had called in a report of someone screaming (the crowing) and he'd come to investigate. I never was ticketed, although I had initially inquired with the town hall and been told it was strictly prohibited.

So I don't know about where you live, but it turned out ok for me.

--Johanna

How neat - I had never been to the NWF website before. Thanks for the great ideas!

We know our neighbors very well. The mini war with the one across the street has very little to do with chickens and a lot to do with her disposition. If it wasn't this, it'd be something else.

Along the lines of having an educational or other purpose for the chickens: Try raise a heritage breed, then you can also state that your preserving a National Treasure of genetics.

But I like the idea of therapy chickens even better! What a delightful idea!

Those are creative ideas, but if you have restrictive covenants for your neighborhood that preclude poultry (and this is a very common restriction), then no laudable purpose is going to neutralize the ban on chickens. I have found homeowners' associations are usually populated by little-minded people on a power trip. It's one reason I don't live in a neighborhood. (The other reason is I could not respect any neighborhood that would actually allow me to live there.)

While I don't live in a Home Owners' Association area, I do live in the city where chickens are now illegal. They were legal for over 200 years but last year a prohibitive ordinance was passed because of a few problem properties in the city. Many people still have chickens, though.
I have a few hens and my coop was redone to make it smaller and to blend in with shrubs in my garden. My coop with pen area measures 4 feet by 8 feet by 7 feet tall and holds 3 bantam hens. I stained the wood brown instead of using bright colors, and I have a wisteria vine growing over top of the coop and small attached run. I grow lemon balm and zinnias in front of the coop, which is strategically placed in an area which cannot be easily seen from my fence. I do let me Golden Sebright run loose when I'm in the garden (she's 6 years old and has gray feathers on her head!), while the Mille Fleurs stay in the coop because they are difficult to catch. None of mine have their wings clipped. Once we move, I'll build a large, fancy coop, but this one works for now. My neighbors know that I have the chickens, which are kept clean and in an attractive setting. It's legal to put a horse in my backyard (figure that one out), so if anyone complains about my hens they'll find a horse here pronto.