Official BYC Poll: Is chicken keeping legal in your town?

[BYC Project Manager]

As with any agricultural enterprise, keeping chickens is subject to a variety of often complex laws and regulations. Most towns and cities in the USA have some local law and/or ordinance regarding livestock and poultry in place and no two towns' restrictions and allowances are identical.

So: Is chicken keeping legal in your town? Place your vote above.

Further Reading:

• Chicken Laws and Ordinances (And how to change them)

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

 

[casportpony]

It's legal where I live.

 

[Folly's place]

It's legal here too. We don't live in a town, rather a township, where we are zoned 'agricultural', and can have livestock. We checked before buying!
Mary
Sorry about the bold type! I hit the wrong thing...

 

[HollowOfWisps]

The closest town has only a couple hundred people and according to everyone in town I live in the middle of nowhere. When we called about getting building permits for a barn we were told that anything considered "Agriculture" isn't regulated...not even building permits. If you don't own livestock here you're definitely the odd one out.

 

[Canina]

I live in a rural area in England and the answer is absolutely NO regardless of the Homestead Act. There's multiple farms a stone's throw away from me but I can't even keep a singular little bantam chicken or call duck even if it were to be an indoors only pet/emotional support animal (no problem quarantining in case of avian flu or similar). I am so sick of my housing association treating me like utter crap and breaking enough laws themselves in the process, so I've defiantly decided to hatch button quail and keep them indoors anyway. I tried doing this the correct way, asking for permission filling out forms for any prospective animal with all my documentation, husbandry notes and qualifications for keeping animals (none of their other tenants bother) and they threw two fingers up at me an are now trying to literally take half my garden away from me- what about all the trees and shrubs I planted on the side they've decided to take? I am the only tenant in the whole town who isn't actively destroying the community with antisocial behaviour and have spent hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds of my own time and money fixing things because of their negligence, so I feel entitled to my little button quail and if they try to evict me I will freaking sue the everloving crap out of them.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Almost need an additional option: "I don't live in a town but state/county ordinance allows it." A lot of chicken legal properties are unsurprisingly outside of HOA or town/city jurisdiction.

 

[McChooky]

We were annexed in and aren't under the same restrictions.(Grandfathered in) We can keep chickens as long as they're contained.

 

[ShannonsChimkens]

We can keep anything except illegal exotics and wildlife.

 

[AleyMoore]

We live in the middle of the city and the city law states we can have up to four hens as long as the coop is 30 feet away from any house in any direction. I have nine hens but that’s besides the point. No roosters are allowed I’m assuming due to noise ordinances but I can hear one go off a few streets down sometimes.

Interestingly enough, we also keep Coturnix quail and the city laws say nothing about game birds.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Folks here have to sign a statement that says they have to live with agricultural sounds and smells. Love it! It's a big part of why we moved here.