Chicken owners in Houston or Austin, Texas?

[TheTexasChickenGirl]

I’m in South Austin, and I had chickens. Had them for 4 years, and we have an HOA and laws that ban them. Never got caught! Lost the grass in the backyard though. Our neighbors were fine with them, also considering we did give them eggs from time to time.
Tips:
Don’t get a rooster
Try to get quiet breeds
Make sure the neighbors are OK with it
Don’t tell a lot of people, don’t have everyone talking about it
Don’t get a billion chickens unless you have the space

One last thing, I had to rehome my chickens as we couldn’t find a pet sitter for all the times we went out of town. Make sure you have a place/person to watch them when you go out of town!

If you come to South Austin it would be fun to meet you! 2 chicken people in one town, do you think even “crazy” Austin can handle it??

 

[jakedaniel]

Howdy, we are moving to either Austin or Houston, depending on schools. I'd love to have advice from anyone in those cities who are raising chickens for eggs. No rooster (too many years in Key West, FL...), just quiet hens. Would like them to free range on my yard, that would be ideal.

I've read the Houston ordinance about 100' from any neighboring property. Is that still in effect? Is it enforced that you know of? That would seem to prevent free ranging.... Also, I think we'll be just outside Houston, in Katy or thereabouts.

Have not checked Austin laws yet.

Any advice or direction would be very helpful - thank you.

Sally

I don’t know about Houston but I can tell you that in Baytown, (just outside of Houston), the setback restrictions were recently doubled to 200’ which outlaws chickens for 99.9% of residents, (though they DID agree that I was grandfathered without putting up too much of a fight over it).
What you should be looking for is a place outside of City Limits where only County Ordinances apply. Make sure to buy outside of any Neighborhood Associations, check the Covenants and Restrictions on the Deed to the property, look at Counties adjacent to the Big City like Chambers, Galveston, and Liberty are to Harris. Good luck!