Can anyone help. Our neighbour has decided to keep chickens. Not a problem. Two chickens and one very large cockerel running free in their very large garden. Then they decided 4 months ago to pen them. Right by the fence 5 metres from our bedroom window.then they bought two more cockerels! The noise is awful, day and night. We have tried talking to them, wine etc , but all ignored. My husband is very disenchanted as we have lived here 12 idyllic years. Not happy about making an official complaint as I think the Mairie would say " it’s the country", and our neighbour is the local doctor! Any suggestions?
Adopt a fox? ;-) No, seriously explain that they are impossible and that you will have to complain at the Mairie if they don't find a solution eg shutting them in at night until a civilised time.
I had a look at the law & found this: first you write nicely to your nice neighbours asking them nicely if they can be v nice and nicely do something about their nice cocks & their lovely crowing which you don't mind at all except when you are sleeping/within earshot - lettre avec AR obviously. Then when they don't you go to the gendarmes & complain, citing the 1992 law which was up-armoured in 2000 & also this little bit of precedent, I have put the bit relevant to you in bold:
"Pour caractériser l'infraction, le juge pénal recherche si les animaux ont été bruyants et ont pu gêner les voisins : il en sera jugé ainsi à propos de quatre chiens et d'un coq, au motif que s'il était certain que les bruits d'animaux pouvaient être habituels et prévisibles en zone rurale, il n'en était pas de même lorsque le propriétaire des animaux n'était pas un exploitant agricole, mais une direction de société qui avait choisi, pour son seul plaisir, d'avoir ces animaux. (C.A. d'Aix en Provence, 19 juin 1995)."
The point is that had they been farmers running a poultry farm before you moved in, then you wouldn't have a leg to stand on (& rightly so) BUT they aren't & this is a new thing & a noisy hobby - so it's as if you suddenly took up drumming or the like, complaints are perfectly normal.
Thanks for your replies. Veronique, they now have 8 chickens and 3 cockerels. Not just ordinary ones but the exotic kind. Not for eating!
Tony, we have asked several times, they agree we must be able to sleep, but do nothing!
Three cockerels going day and night is wearing us down!
What to do?
If they have 2 hens & 3 cocks pretty soon the problem will disappear because I expect they will eat 2 of the cocks, I can't imagine why they would have them, otherwise.
Otherwise you are safe enough complaining about nuisance sonore because your neighbours aren't farmers & it is a new fad of theirs.