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A clucking fowl.
A New Jersey shore town has outlawed roosters, claiming that the animals’ raucous, inconsistent noise has negatively affected the public health and residents’ well-being in the quiet neighborhood.
The Brick Township Council unanimously voted during a meeting on Oct. 13 to ban all cock-a-doodle-dooing male chickens within the municipality’s borders following a large number of noise complaints.
The ordinance, which amended an existing township code on keeping and housing animals in Brick to prohibit roosters, passed after all seven council members approved the measure.
Noise complaints over the crowing birds in the Ocean County town began to mount over the last six years as more and more homeowners began to raise chickens during the COVID-19 lockdowns and the demand for homegrown eggs.
The town council found noise from roosters had an adverse affect on public safety and health because of their repetitive and inconsistent noise generation compared to other domesticated fowl including hens and the contrasts to the “quiet enjoyment of neighboring residential properties.”
Brick residents are prohibited from “owning, harboring, raising, breeding or possessing a rooster inside the township with the passing of the ordinance.
Residents who owned a rooster before the ordinance can keep the animal but only after obtaining a permit from the zoning office and keeping it in an approved structure until its death.
The rooster owners are prohibited from replacing or adding any additional roosters after its death, sale or removal.
Some questioned the seriousness of the council, including one of its members, who ridiculed the local politicians for spending time on banning the bird.
“I’ve never heard a rooster, and they should have more important things to worry about,” Brick resident Mike Smith said, according to News12.
“I still can’t believe we’re voting on this,” Councilman Gregory Cohen said during the meeting. “There’s so much important stuff going on here and we’re talking about roosters.”
Other residents expressed their frustrations at Cohen, sharing their nightmare neighbors that are active throughout the day.
“It sounds comical, but let me tell you, if you have a rooster next door to your house, it is serious,” resident Onofrio Ambrosino said.
“It is funny until you’re woken up at five o’clock in the morning and you hear them all day,” another resident, Patricia Schucht, told Cohen during the meeting.
Aggravated residents could only do so much about the alleged annoying birds before the ordinance was passed as owning a rooster wasn’t illegal and enforcement of the noise ordinance would only be done it a responding police officer witnessed the noise complaint firsthand.
Despite the newly passed ordinance going into effect immediately, roosters will continue to fill the quiet neighborhoods of Brick for several more years as their average lifespans are between five to eight years with some living as much as 15 years, according to Four Paws USA.
Some owners revealed the roosters are much more than an alarm clock, as they defend hens and chicks from predators including foxes and hawks.