I thought I’d use this week’s Flock Focus Friday to celebrate my beautiful boys at Blazing Trails Farm! I’ve got a major beef with the negative perceptions perpetrated by many rooster detractors. Until I began keeping chickens myself, I didn’t realize that roosters are no noisier than barking dogs and while it’s true that a rooster may crow at daybreak or in the middle of the night if disturbed, dogs can too, and crowing can be managed easily by sound-proofing and light-proofing the coop or by bringing the rooster into another interior space (garage, basement) to sleep at night. Measured in decibel levels, upper 70s are annoying to most people.

A rooster at 328 feet = 48 dB
A lawnmower at 328 feet=107 dB
A barking dog at 400 feet = 48 dB
A typical car interior on the highway=75 dB

So, before conceding an argument that roosters should be outlawed, a more critical assessment of the facts of rooster sounds and behaviors should be made.

Sources, decibel levels:
http://www.controlnoise.com/decibel-chart
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/chemsafety/Training/PPETrain/dblevels.htm
http://www.anilak.com/sound-level-dog-barking/
http://wordinfo.info/unit/620/ip:1/il:D
http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/pdf/0190.pdfhttp://www.noisehelp.com/noise-level-chart.html