Brick Township has silenced its roosters.
The Ocean County shore town unanimously outlawed male chickens on October 13, amending its animal-housing code to bar residents from “owning, harboring, raising, breeding or possessing a rooster inside the township.” All seven council members approved the measure after noise complaints mounted for six years, spiking during the COVID-19 lockdowns when backyard chicken-keeping surged.
The council found that rooster crowing harmed public health and safety through “repetitive and inconsistent noise generation” that clashed with the “quiet enjoyment of neighboring residential properties.” Unlike hens, the birds crow unpredictably and at all hours, shattering suburban silence.
The new rule landed with a practical compromise. Residents who already own roosters may keep them until death, but only after securing a zoning permit and housing them in an approved structure. Once that bird dies, sells, or leaves, no replacements are allowed.
At the meeting, the debate exposed raw nerves between sleep-deprived homeowners and officials who questioned whether the issue deserved council time.
“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.”
Cohen’s skepticism drew immediate fire from residents who had endured years of predawn crowing.
“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.
The problem had festered partly because enforcement was nearly impossible. Owning roosters was never illegal before this ordinance, and the existing noise ordinance required a responding police officer to witness the violation personally. Frustrated neighbors had little recourse against birds that crowed intermittently and unpredictably.
Not every resident saw a crisis. Mike Smith, a Brick resident, dismissed the council’s focus entirely.
“I’ve never heard a rooster, and they should have more important things to worry about,” Smith said, according to News12.
The ordinance took effect immediately, but its full silence will take years to arrive. Roosters typically live five to eight years, with some reaching fifteen. Several owners noted the birds serve purposes beyond their notorious crowing, defending hens and chicks from foxes and hawks.
Other New Jersey municipalities have faced similar poultry pressures. Fair Lawn in Bergen County has considered new rules for roosters, while Lacey Township debated chicken regulations that drew resident pushback. The backyard chicken trend, accelerated by pandemic-era interest in homegrown eggs, has forced suburban towns to reconcile agrarian nostalgia with noise ordinances written for leaf blowers and barking dogs.
Brick’s ban leaves existing birds grandfathered but doomed, permitted but prohibited from reproduction. The township has traded one kind of inconsistency for another: instead of unpredictable crowing, a slow demographic fade as the last legal roosters age out of the neighborhood.
The next Brick Township Council meeting is scheduled for October 27.