Stopham chicken breeder’s fears over complaints about crowing and clucking

By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Dec 2015, 11:43 BST
Sarah McKenzie with her daughters Willow and Hebe with some of their rare breed chickens and cockerels (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-151130-112858008 SUS-151130-112858008Sarah McKenzie with her daughters Willow and Hebe with some of their rare breed chickens and cockerels (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-151130-112858008 SUS-151130-112858008
Sarah McKenzie with her daughters Willow and Hebe with some of their rare breed chickens and cockerels (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-151130-112858008 SUS-151130-112858008

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A chicken breeder fears for the future of her business after complaints from ‘townies’ over the noise of her cockerels crowing and hens clucking.

Sarah McKenzie, who rears rare-breed birds at a rural site at Sussex Garden Poultry in Stopham, near Pulborough, has been running her business there on rented land since 2011.

But, she said, feathers had begun to fly recently after neighbours moved nearby and complained about the noise.

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“Chickens do make noises,” she said. “We’re in the countryside. If you can’t farm in the countryside where can you do it?”

Sarah, a 43-year-old single parent, said that agents for her landlord had now told her that she could only house six birds in her garden ‘for personal use.’

But last year she reared around 1,500 birds and has 2,500 on order for next year and fears that she could lose her livelihood if she has to move her flock.