Neighbors removed chicken fence

Andrew Mayflower wrote:

Trace Oswald wrote:

Andrew Mayflower wrote:But to avoid conflict with current or future neighbors it's usually best to put up a fence some distance inside your property line.  

I would be very careful with this.  If the neighbor uses the land up to the fence and "makes improvement", which can be very simple things like a path or a small structure or their own fence, you could end up losing that part of your land through adverse possession.

I hear this said whenever this kind of topic comes up, here or elsewhere, but I've never seen any evidence of it actually being a legitimate problem.  Consider too that especially if the fence is set several feet inside your property you will still have to maintain the side facing the neighbor (mow, prune trees, weed, clear brush, not to mention maintaining the fence itself) you can provide plenty of proof that it's still yours, and prevent them from "improving" that side and have a good defense if they ever tried to make such a claim.

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. Adverse possession is real, it can happen, and I think people should be aware of it if they follow your advice. If you, or they, don't think it's an issue, then no worries. I know if I built a fence five feet into my property, there is a good chance I would be remiss about mowing or otherwise maintaining the other side of it. Other people may be more conscientious than I am. I personally would build the fence on the property line and not have to worry about it.

Trace Oswald wrote:

Andrew Mayflower wrote:But to avoid conflict with current or future neighbors it's usually best to put up a fence some distance inside your property line.  

I would be very careful with this.  If the neighbor uses the land up to the fence and "makes improvement", which can be very simple things like a path or a small structure or their own fence, you could end up losing that part of your land through adverse possession.

The property line is still the property line. If you look carefully, there should be property markers at the corners. Here, it is a special metal post with an orange tip and a notice to not move the property marker under penalty of Law. Look where yours is. If you can't find it, go to your land surveyor / Register of deed etc.at the Court House.
Those markers represent the only line that is operational legally. If your neighbor were to make 'improvements' between the property line and your fence that is when you call the Sheriff and ask to have it taken down.  I believe you have 7 years of adverse possession to make him take it down.[If you take no action in 7 years, it is deemed that you have come to an agreement and depriving him of it would be a tort to him].  It is in that similar to the common law wife who has been used to a certain standard of living and is then tossed on her ear. After a while, she has some rights as you may have taken the usufruct of the relationship.
Here, if we put up a small building, it has to be 6 ft away from the property line. Your neighbor would be in a heap of trouble erecting a building on your side of the property line.
These are some of the rules in vigor in Central Wisconsin. Many other States have similar laws but before you make any moves, of course, you should consult your local people/ ordinances etc. The surveyor, who usually has an office in the Courthouse, can give you free information on that.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:

Trace Oswald wrote:

Andrew Mayflower wrote:But to avoid conflict with current or future neighbors it's usually best to put up a fence some distance inside your property line.  

I would be very careful with this.  If the neighbor uses the land up to the fence and "makes improvement", which can be very simple things like a path or a small structure or their own fence, you could end up losing that part of your land through adverse possession.

The property line is still the property line. If you look carefully, there should be property markers at the corners. Here, it is a special metal post with an orange tip and a notice to not move the property marker under penalty of Law. Look where yours is. If you can't find it, go to your land surveyor / Register of deed etc.at the Court House.
Those markers represent the only line that is operational legally. If your neighbor were to make 'improvements' between the property line and your fence that is when you call the Sheriff and ask to have it taken down.  I believe you have 7 years of adverse possession to make him take it down.[If you take no action in 7 years, it is deemed that you have come to an agreement and depriving him of it would be a tort to him].  It is in that similar to the common law wife who has been used to a certain standard of living and is then tossed on her ear. After a while, she has some rights as you may have taken the usufruct of the relationship.
Here, if we put up a small building, it has to be 6 ft away from the property line. Your neighbor would be in a heap of trouble erecting a building on your side of the property line.
These are some of the rules in vigor in Central Wisconsin. Many other States have similar laws but before you make any moves, of course, you should consult your local people/ ordinances etc. The surveyor, who usually has an office in the Courthouse, can give you free information on that.

Wisconsin has passed laws recently that make adverse possession nearly impossible.  It isn't like that in every state, and different states have different time requirements.  CA it's 5 years, some states it's 20.  It's very easy in most states to stop an adverse possession, but not if you don't know that such a thing exists.

As an aside, Wisconsin doesn't acknowledge common law marriage either.

The rules about fences very definitely change from country to country and from the sounds of things, from state to state.

A Cautionary Tale

My father bought a retirement home and had it surveyed before purchase. The neighbor to the west had a paved driveway that was over the property line near the road end. In all fairness, the former owners should have dealt with the issue years ago, but the properties were on a sharp curve in the road, so the drive would have had to have a bend in it, and people got lazy when it was installed (and it was probably only gravel at the time.)

So Dad spoke to the fellow who said, "yes, the drive will need replacing in a few years - can I fix it then".
Dad thought that was a reasonable compromise, except the few years went by and when the neighbor got people in to fix the drive, there was no sign of the drive getting moved. Dad had to do a certain amount of "insisting". Luckily, it didn't get ugly, and my parents didn't particularly interact with those neighbors anyway, but these are issues that can arise.

A Tale of Identifying Needs and NOT Following the Pack

The law in the community I lived in years back in Ontario, stated that if you put a chain link fence up, the neighbors were obligated to share the price, but anything else you could refuse. I wasn't very popular when I refused to pay for the current fad of 5 ft wood fences with 1 ft of lattice at the top which was supposed to "give people privacy" except the tall guys could all look through the lattice and I was too short to. Made the place look like a prison to me.  I used plants and some trellis to give me privacy on my patio area where it counted. Several neighbors who saw that, had built decks off their houses that were high enough up that not only could they see over this expensive fencing, but which meant they had zero privacy on their decks, commented that I'd done the smart thing! I was a rebel back then too!

Figure out where and why you need fencing, and make sure what you build will actually achieve your goal. And make sure you know the rules where you're living. And don't be afraid to do something different from the current "style" - you may well come up with something unique, beautiful, functional, artistic that is a joy for you and your neighbors for decades to come (even if at first they think you're a little weird!)

James Freyr wrote:
In Texas, I believe if I'm not mistaken, they have fence-out laws, where cattle are allowed to graze wherever, and if a person does not want someone else's cattle on their property, it is that persons responsibility to put up a fence to keep those cattle out.

I think taking someone to court sucks, but it may be an option if they don't want to help a neighbor. Perhaps your state has some laws about keeping farm animals on a property.

Howdy!
Yes. this is a good way to go. Depending on the land rights laws are in your county and state, as well as whatever smaller jurisdiction may have control over where you live, reading up on who has which rights and responsibilities is very important when you have livestock roaming.
Talk to a local sheriff or other law enforcement officer, too. They can better detail how the written law gets translated into action in your locality.

As someone in a rural area, in Texas, animal/owner land use is more complicated than what sounds so easy in "fence-out" laws. Where I live, there is an interesting phrasing of the leash laws, as applied by the state, and it trickles down to basically a leash law version of cattle handling. The owners of the roaming cattle are responsible for the damage they do, and they are responsible for keeping their cattle contained. After talking with the local sheriff after yet another afternoon with my neighbor's herd in my front yard, we have permission of the local county level sheriffs to shoot to both defend ourselves and to make a point.  (We were told to go ahead and shoot one, then invite the neighbors to a barbecue.)
After we shared that little tidbit of information (the sheriff was as tired with dealing with someone else's cattle as we were), the fence got fixed and has been kept up to snuff since.

With smaller livestock (and dogs and cats are considered livestock per our local laws), it's the responsibility of the owner to keep the animals contained or otherwise on their property. If the animal is off the property, the owner has no more say in what happens to it. Period. If I have my neighbor's dog in my yard and I don't care about starting a feud, I can shoot the dog. Or his chicken, cat, goat, hog, whatever. Generally speaking, in practice I would either corral the critter and return it to him or ignore it. Except where, as we have had to start doing recently, we livetrap the cat/dog in with our flock and we shoot it. Good neighbors are hard to come by and we have a weird relationship of sorts, but it's generally friendly.

In this situation, without knowing what the law has to say about roaming livestock or who has what liability as regards it, I vote on the side of "Livetrap and rehome" as you, OP, don't want to eat or keep the chickens.
Yes, the loss of land through use, versus visual abandonment, is a possibility, but it would be hard to make a case for that if the neighbors have a history of making a change with the expressed intention of a future change, but never following through. (The "tearing down the shrubbery to eventually install a fence that never happened" even comes to mind.)
Since the goal is to try to save the garden from rampaging chickens,  removing the chickens would be a better solution, depending on the local laws regarding that.
If this situation has resolved itself, I hope it has been to the betterment of our friendly Permie.

Kristine Keeney wrote:

With smaller livestock (and dogs and cats are considered livestock per our local laws), it's the responsibility of the owner to keep the animals contained or otherwise on their property. If the animal is off the property, the owner has no more say in what happens to it. Period.

That said, our neighbors used to have a dog and were generally very responsible regarding it. One day, somehow, their gate got left open. The dog did not cause any damage, and we managed to get it home (I recall it was freezing rain and very slippery at the time!) and locked behind a gate. They were incredibly grateful.

In other words, there's a big difference between an isolated lapse or unexpected escape and what the OP is dealing with. I think our communities are nicer places for everyone if we can solve problems cooperatively, and expect that all humans err, and do our best to promote responsible actions, rather than punish people for making a mistake.

Jay is correct that there is a big difference between an occasional lapse when an animal ends up in someone else's yard and the situation as described. Our permie here appears to already have a bad neighbor, and that may have to involve the Law, eventually.
Very interesting to read what Kristine had to say about the law in Texas. In the south of France too, it is the responsibility of the owner to keep their cows where they belong, as it is a good law.
Here, in Wisconsin, I was hunting on my property from my stand when the neighbor's dog came and peed right on the trail I was watching. I had a strong urge to kill the dog [as a number of Wisconsin hunters have told me they would have] especially that this was not the first time it rambled on to my property, but I didn't. I did tell my neighbor that during the hunting season, they had better keep their dog leashed or contained [which is the law of the land here also] as it is not safe to have a dog in the woods "with all the shooting going on."
They sent the Sheriff over to 'explain' to me that shooting a dog that I know to be a neighbor's constitutes willful destruction of property and is punishable. [By what, he didn't know.]
I think the sheriff was making that up but I didn't shoot the dog. The dog itself solved the problem by being run over by a passing car, late at night, as it was loose, again.
We are a few miles from the closest town and folks do let their dog loose. If you love your dog/chicken/horse/cow/goat protect it by doing what you can to keep it where it belongs.
It is also the neighborly thing to do.

We get roaming dogs and cats, too. I think it's a curse of rural living. We also have dumped animals on too regular a basis. Again, a curse of rural living.

It's funny that your neighbor's response to a kind warning of improper animal handling was to send a sheriff over. I would have asked for the exact law, regulation, or judgment that would put me in care of my neighbor's animal during hunting season. Are *you* to be held to blame if your neighbor's dog gets shot? That's craziness. As the sheriff didn't know the number of the violation, I suspect he was making it up and just trying to keep the peace.

Yes, the occasional lapse isn't a problem. It happens. Same with a young animal who is in training and will sometimes go for a wild run. When the same animal spends more time outside their yard than in it, or has a regular habit that is less than neighborly (my neighbor's large dogs have taken to voiding in my yard and that's a problem), then something can be said or done. First the attempt to work out an equitable solution, then more strenuous measures taken.

Lots of good ideas here, just a few extra suggestions.
Have you tried giving them all participation ribbons? It seems to make things better emotionally.

If that doesnt work try to reason with them tell them your side of the story and how it is affecting you. Chickens in my experience are good listeners and nod in approval when a reasonable conversation is being had.

So if you are still having trouble write up a list of grievences and hand it to the most intelligent looking hen. She will peck at the list and tear it a bit but thats just how chickens read, its like brail. Dont worry she is taking it all in.
I would wait a while maybe a few days before expecting an answer. She will probably be very alouf to it all anyway, like she never read the note. Dont take it personal.

There is another option to consider and thats making some residule income with the chickens

Pearl Sutton wrote:Chickens don't like things that flap. A towel, a bandana , or a long skirt terrify them. I'd try a low row or two of flappy flags.

A line of cheap wind spinners might disturb them too, I have some pretty effectively annoying the bunnies.

I saw a reddit post where Stanley was pictured. That same picture - in a chicken forum. If I remember the thread, there were a plethora of suggestions for moving him around to make sure the hawks and owls didn't get used to him being in one place.
I think it's a hilarious idea, if a bit more expensive than a tea towel or fabric strip fastened to a post.

I'm tempted to get a Stanley myself, except that my problem is two small and young dogs that have been, apparently, somewhat adopted by a neighbor but like to come over and eat my chicken feed. Very expensive eggs those dogs *don't* lay. Hopefully, the neighbor will start caring for the dogs better.

Kristine Keeney wrote:I saw a reddit post where Stanley was pictured. That same picture - in a chicken forum. If I remember the thread, there were a plethora of suggestions for moving him around to make sure the hawks and owls didn't get used to him being in one place.
I think it's a hilarious idea, if a bit more expensive than a tea towel or fabric strip fastened to a post.

I'm tempted to get a Stanley myself, except that my problem is two small and young dogs that have been, apparently, somewhat adopted by a neighbor but like to come over and eat my chicken feed. Very expensive eggs those dogs *don't* lay. Hopefully, the neighbor will start caring for the dogs better.

I'm a "less work" kind of guy; so for hawks I like the idea of a Stanley and a bunch of Tibetan prayer flags around the property, personally.


And as far as neighbors dogs go... Guinea Fowl are a wonderful predator deterrent, from what I hear... plus an added bonus: the hen's sound like they're saying "come back! come back" which is hilarious after they school a predator in "stay off my lawn 101"

So, how did it turn out?  It's been a little while.  Did you find a way to resolve the issue?

I always recommend calling your local animal control officer.  She or he can be the go-between if you've tried to speak and/or negotiate with the neighbour unsuccessfully.  They know the local law around fencing and keeping critters and can enforce it.  If they choose, they can remove the 'strays' and impound them.  If they aren't claimed within a certain amount of time, they're offered to the public or sent to a rescue.

I hope you got all of this sorted in a way that didn't further increase your stress.

Andrew Mayflower wrote:

Trace Oswald wrote:

Andrew Mayflower wrote:But to avoid conflict with current or future neighbors it's usually best to put up a fence some distance inside your property line.  

I would be very careful with this.  If the neighbor uses the land up to the fence and "makes improvement", which can be very simple things like a path or a small structure or their own fence, you could end up losing that part of your land through adverse possession.

I hear this said whenever this kind of topic comes up, here or elsewhere, but I've never seen any evidence of it actually being a legitimate problem.  Consider too that especially if the fence is set several feet inside your property you will still have to maintain the side facing the neighbor (mow, prune trees, weed, clear brush, not to mention maintaining the fence itself) you can provide plenty of proof that it's still yours, and prevent them from "improving" that side and have a good defense if they ever tried to make such a claim.

No, adverse possession is a very real and legitimate danger in this situation.  For the cost of some attorney fees, your neighbors could make keeping your property extremely expensive and difficult for you.  Since the fence is legally considered a property line fence, it would be incumbent on you to thoroughly document that you maintain the property on the neighbor's side of the fence.  Otherwise, after a set number of years, it can be determined that you have voluntarily decided to set your property line at the fence you built.

Pay for a property line survey and put your fence ON the property line, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Been there, done that, this is based on attorney advice from a past legal case.

As for the chickens, it is the responsibility of the livestock owner to manage their livestock.  If your neighbors aren't doing so, you need to make a stink with the local sheriff's department until they respond.  Call animal protection as well.  

Neil Moffett wrote: Since the fence is legally considered a property line fence, it would be incumbent on you to thoroughly document that you maintain the property on the neighbor's side of the fence.  Otherwise, after a set number of years, it can be determined that you have voluntarily decided to set your property line at the fence you built.

Pay for a property line survey and put your fence ON the property line, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Been there, done that, this is based on attorney advice from a past legal case.

As for the chickens, it is the responsibility of the livestock owner to manage their livestock.  If your neighbors aren't doing so, you need to make a stink with the local sheriff's department until they respond.  Call animal protection as well.  

These things are very much dependent on where you live. Different places = different laws. Please do your own research, for your own place & situation, because in many places, it's even illegal to put a fence directly on the property line, and in other, it can only be done by mutual agreement &/or mutual sharing of the expense.