Can I Keep a Rooter? (St.Louis County)

[Seth_12]

So I have been researching online to see if I can keep a rooster in St. Louis County, MO. I read that you can keep chickens but you can't breed to sell. So does that mean I can keep a rooster? My feed store is 15 minutes away and I saw they have a rooster. Any information would help.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It depends on what city you are in. As you know there are 93 cities in St. Louis county.
One city may allow 3 chickens, someone across the street in another city may be allowed 15 chickens, there may be another city at the end of the street that allows unlimited chickens AND roosters.
If you are in unincorporated St. L. county, yes, they are legal, but you aren't allowed to breed chickens. Weird, I know.
There are several cities that allow chickens.
I teach chicken classes at St. Louis Community College. I'm supposed to have a beginner class coming up April 4. That will likely be cancelled now.

If you message me I can deliver much more information if you give me your phone number.

 

[Seth_12]

It depends on what city your are in. As you know there are 93 cities in St. Louis county.
One city may allow 3 chickens, someone across the street in another city may be allowed 15 chickens, there may be another city at the end of the street that allows unlimited chickens AND roosters.
If you are in unincorporated St. L. county, yes, they are legal, but you aren't allowed to breed chickens. Weird, I know.
There are several cities that allow chickens.
I teach chicken classes at St. Louis Community College. I'm supposed to have a beginner class coming up April 4. That will likely be cancelled now.

If you message me I can deliver much more information if you give me your phone number.

I live in Sunset Hills, so I guess that means no I can't have a rooster?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I worked to get chickens approved in Sunset Hills but I think they decided against roosters. The vote was several years ago so I don't remember.
Check your ordinances.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Roosters are allowed in Clayton, Ladue and other cities. Mostly because they have never written chickens into ordinances.
I live in the only city I'm aware of that actually wrote an ordinance that allowed chickens.
I have a permit for 85 chickens and 5 roosters. It took a lot of work to get it passed.

 

[Seth_12]

So I looked at Sunset Hills ordinances and it says your chickens can't be too noisy that causes disturbance to your neighborhood. What I'm getting out of this is I probably can't keep a rooster

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It depends on the size of your yard (distance to neighbors), arrangement of your yard (sound barriers), housing (arrangement of windows), volume of the rooster and attitude of the neighbors.
I currently have 6 roosters. They are loud when I stand among them but I can't hear them when I'm in the house unless all the windows are open. I can hear the traffic, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, boom boxes, roofers, barking dogs, I can even hear the train whistle about 3 miles away - but I can't hear the roosters.
All those things are louder than most roosters, it is just that people are accustomed to urban noises.
When I lived in Costa Rica, everyone had chickens/roosters and no one closed their windows so they were quite loud but I grew to love them because I didn't need an annoying alarm clock to get to work on time.