Rules and Regulations

There are no national rules or regulations in the UK that stop you from keeping small numbers (less than 50) chickens however there are some regulations to check first.

Rules-and-regulations-keeping-chickens

  • DEFRA: You are allowed to keep up to 50 chickens on your land without registering with DEFRA, however after the avian influenza outbreaks, a poultry register was set up in 2005 and you are required to register if you keep more than 50 poultry on the premises – so you need to take into consideration any other poultry you have. There is more information on my page: DEFRA: The Poultry Register
  • By-Laws: There are occasionally by-laws for certain properties that prevent people from keeping livestock. Check with your local council that this doesn’t apply to you.
  • Covenants: There are sometimes covenants put in place by housing authorities and councils to stop tenants from keeping chickens at their property. This seems to be a local decision as there are no national restrictions.
  • House Deeds: Again, the deeds of some properties may state that you are not allowed to keep chickens (again, often stated as keeping livestock). If your property is free of restrictions, you should be able to keep chickens without a problem, however do keep in mind that local residents may complain to the council about noise levels if you keep a cockerel.

There are a number of Laws, regulations and requirements that can affect you (in the UK) and I have created a number of sub pages to cover these briefly:

140 Comments

  1. my neighbour is an arrogant, ignorant woman with no thought for anyone but her.she is getting chickens (which i do not have a problem with) but from what i have heard,she intends to keep them halfway up her garden by the dividing fence which is adjacent to our patio where we sit.is there a distance that they should be from the house so as not to cause a nuisance and put us of our bbq’s in the summer.
    thank you

    • I’m sorry, I’m not aware of any regulations that state distances. Hopefully you can talk to her and suggest something different.

    • Dave chickens are great, my neighbours on both sides don’t mind a bit me having 8 chickens they don’t make much noise, or smell if kept clean, and they get to have some great eggs, try talking to them, about them having chickens, and get to know how they are going o keep them, they really don’t make much bother to any one and are great to keep.

  2. My neighbourse have told me that they dont like looking out their window down onto my 4 chickens. they have said that they are noisy and they smell. they are cleaned every week and every day the poop is picked up from the coop, I have said that I dont know why they are smelling, could it be the mud they smell, the neighbours are known as moaners.. my concern is they are asking planning permission to have built a balcony, once this has been done could they ask for us to remove our birds as they can not use the balcony because they say they are noisy and smelly, I have 4 girls and they do not smell.. they are very much spoilt and I love having them. why my neigbours want a balcony built if they dont like the view is beyond me. many thanks

    • Hi Julie I have 8 chickens and they are my pets they too are spoilt, my next door neighbours both sides don’t mind my girls,and have never said anything about any smell, it’s me who thinks they smell, so I use a run disinfectant powder STALOSAN F. You put it over the run I have wood chip and helps with any smell and helps keep bugs down, you could try putting a good layer of wood chip NOT BARK down it helps with the mud and the girls love scratching over it. If you are concerned talk to your council, then you can tell next door you can keep them, enjoy your chickens they are great

    • You think they don’t smell probably because you’ve got used to it. A year ago my neighbour got 6 chickens and built a coop right against the fence boundary to my property. It is approx., 20 feet from my house and the chickens do smell. It’s very pungent and makes sitting in my garden quite unpleasant.
      She got them last year and I noticed the smell within a couple of months but decided not to complain as she was probably learning how to look after them. Unfortunately, the smell is so bad, the landscapers who’ve recently completed some work on my garden said it so pungent they were glad when the work was completed.
      My neighbour won’t answer her door so in the end I put a very nicely worded note through her door stating my concerns but I doubt she’ll do anything.
      The only consolation is that she is trying to sell her property. I just hope viewers aren’t put off by the coop and the smell.

      • I think you will find that if the substrate is kept clean, they will not smell. Chickens on their own are not smelly, it is their droppings that release ammonia, attract flies and will smell if not removed and replaced regularly.

        Just like a chicken house, once clean, it does not smell but if it is dirty, it will not be very pleasant.

        I’m sorry to hear of the problems you have with your neighbour, but i am sure this is the same for any animal if not kept clean.

  3. Many years ago…(over 50 yrs !) and when just a boy of 13 yrs I started work on a chicken farm. There was several very long sheds, maybe 70 -100 yds long where the chickens were kept inside but allowed to roam. I used to have to clean these out and it was a full time job. They all had their own ‘poo pits’. I would literally dig a hole into the pits about 30inches deep, climb in and start shovelling out a mixture of chick poo and broken eggs…..
    Now that is what one could say was smelly!!

  4. Hi, my neighbour next door has 4 chickens. We live next to the A10, listen to flight paths, and chickens, in the summer he lets them out at 5am, hence our windows are open, so we are then woken up, our gardens are very small. I have asked my neighbours kindly to let them out around 7am. but to no avail, ignored and seen as a joke!! I’m a working mum with children.Rats have been spotted also…… Exactly, at what point are my human rights??……… the chickens smell, are noisy, and we feel locked up in our home??

    • I am sorry, you would need to go to your citizens advice bureau or a solicitor to ask. This isn’t something I know about. I would guess anti-social behaviour orders might help (perhaps search for noisy neighbours?) but I would encourage you approach your neighbour again before going down this route. A letter put in a non-confrontational or threatening way might also be a good starting point. Good luck, I hope you can come to some compromise with your neighbour.

  5. Hi, our council website doesn’t actually specify whether we can keep chickens or not, and I recently read that in some boroughs, they might not be allowed. Could you tell me if I can keep them if I live in Hounslow?

    • I’m sorry, you would need to contact your Council… I don’t have any information on where you are not allowed to keep chickens.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.