Is it legal to keep chickens in your backyard? It depends.
In the United States, about 11 million households currently keep chickens in their backyards, making these feathery friends the third-most-popular pets, right after dogs and cats. The chicken craze has increased significantly over the past few years, as chicken shortages have cause the price of eggs to skyrocket.
The boom began around 2022, but over the past 12 months, Google searches for “how to raise chickens” and “backyard chickens” have skyrocketed and hatcheries can’t keep up with the demand. Some even have months-long waitlists.
Given their popularity, and the shortage of eggs, you might think the rules and regulations for keeping backyard chickens on your property would be relatively simple to navigate. But that isn’t always the case, as one Pacific Legal Foundation client learned the hard way.
When Kathy Sarkisian decided to live out her dream of keeping chickens in her Douglas, Michigan, backyard, she was careful to follow every local rule. After the City approved her permit, Kathy thought everything was good to go, until a week later when zoning officials called to tell her that after it issued the permit, one of her neighbors objected.
According to the City laws, neighbors have complete veto power over chicken permits, no matter the reason. The City was supposed to have checked with the neighbor, who only lived there part time, before the permit was issued. And even though it failed to abide by its own timeline, it didn’t matter—Kathy was told to get rid of her chickens. She wasn’t even given the opportunity to appeal that decision.
Now, after spending thousands of dollars and retrofitting her garage as an indoor coop, building an outdoor chicken run, and replacing fencing around her property to comply with the City’s specifications, she stands to lose her chickens. And even worse, the City came after her for keeping chickens without a permit, a civil infraction that comes with fines of up to $300 per day.
Government regulations have complicated the process of buying and caring for backyard chickens on your own property. But thanks to the recent avian flu outbreak, increasing our supply of chickens is more important now than ever before—and keeping your own chickens is a long-standing American tradition.
With so much demand, it leaves one to wonder why the cluck it’s so hard to get government approval.
Which came first: The chickens or the zoning laws?
Backyard chickens are as American as apple pie. In fact, historically, you didn’t even need to have a backyard. In the 19th century, as the country began to grow and urbanize, more people moved into crowded apartments without yards. Even so, it wasn’t uncommon for families in big cities to raise chickens that roamed around in back alleys.
After World War II came to an end, so did the general free-range policies surrounding backyard chickens. Up until this point, Americans mostly lived in cities or rural farmland—there wasn’t much in between. But that changed with the rise of suburbs.
The GI Bill gave veterans returning from war the opportunity to purchase homes with little to no down payment. And with the baby boom well underway, Americans had an increasing need for more space than a crowded city apartment could provide. Bolstered by the demand for new housing, developers rushed in droves to build homes in the sparsely populated and underdeveloped suburbs. This new era of suburban growth brought with it a new era of zoning regulations.
The suburbs created a middle ground between city and country life and created an entirely new subculture.
Unlike rural areas, suburban homes were just a stone’s throw away from each other. Living in such close quarters, you got a front-row seat to your neighbors’ personal lives and routines. You knew what time they went to work, took out the trash, and grabbed the paper. And for the nosy and curious neighbors, you also could hear any spats that might arise between family members.
While this kind of closeness was expected in congested city life, suburban life gave people a false sense of privacy. These new homes offered fenced backyards, giving you just enough space to feel private, but not enough to shield your life from prying eyes.
Suddenly, neighbors had a lot of opinions about what the others were doing and they had no problem complaining to local municipalities. And these weren’t just concerns about noise or sanitation—they were from people who wanted the picket-fenced homogeneity promised by suburbia. If your lawn wasn’t kept up to par or if you dared to plant a garden in your front yard, busybody neighbors would call on local governments to dole out punishments and fines.
In short, suburban dwellers wanted a life that was centered on orderliness and conformity and was distinctly different from big-city and rural life.
Backyard chickens, unfortunately, became an easy target for neighborhood busybodies who began pushing for zoning rules that prohibited “farm animals” in residential areas. Even if chickens were not outright banned in neighborhoods, many zoning codes limited the number of chickens you could have or required permits that mandated that certain specifications be met—for example, mandating that chicken coops must be built a certain number of feet from property lines, and requiring consent of all surrounding neighbors.
By the 1970s, most suburban municipalities had banned or heavily restricted the ownership of backyard chickens. No matter what the specific rule was, each was created to discourage chicken ownership on your own property by making it harder for people to get government approval. Worse still, as these regulations have grown more complex throughout the years, it has become increasingly difficult to know which governing body makes and enforces the rules.
The rules are scrambled, the process is fried, and property rights are on the chopping block
Even in the midst of our chicken renaissance, strict regulations remain, and knowing where to begin finding the information you need to legally own chickens will send you on a wild goose (chicken?) chase.
With so many different layers of government, it’s difficult to know who to ask. Typically, there are no federal laws around chicken ownership, unless you are selling poultry across state lines. And in most cases, state laws do not directly address chicken ownership on private property. The regulations usually come into play at a more local level, like counties and cities. But knowing where the rules originate is only half the battle.
Many laws are so vague, they don’t give a clear picture of the rules. Some municipalities, like Fairfax County, Virginia, for example, require hearings in front of zoning boards before granting approval, but the City provides no specific criteria for what one must do to gain said approval.
Other municipalities, like Palos Heights, Illinois, use ambiguous terms like “farm animal” or “livestock” in zoning ordinances, without listing specific definitions, leaving residents unclear about the law.
There are also stories of homeowners meeting with zoning officers only to find that they don’t even know the law for sure. It’s not even as simple as checking zoning codes alone as there is often multi-departmental overlap. Backyard chicken rules can be found within animal control ordinances, zoning codes, health and safety laws, nuisance laws, permitting laws…the list goes on. And then of course, there are different laws depending on the size of your property.
If you manage to get through this regulatory maze, you might find out that city laws contradict the laws of your homeowner’s association. Or, like Kathy Sarkisian, you might obtain a city permit only to find your neighbor has stepped in to veto the process.
Trying to figure out the rules will have you running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Even when you think you’ve done everything right, you might come to learn you’ve inadvertently run afoul of local backyard chicken laws.
As for Kathy, Pacific Legal Foundation has stepped in to help her fight for her right to keep chickens on her own property. The government can’t give your neighbors an unreviewable veto over reasonable and legal uses of what you can and cannot do on your own property. Nor can the government take away your property rights without informing you and giving you a chance to object.
While PLF is filled with property rights experts, between us chickens, we aren’t experts on all backyard chicken laws. If you need help navigating your local rules, it’s best to consult known enthusiasts. Sites like Backyard Chickens and Omlet help chicken enthusiasts navigate the complicated processes in your state and connect you with other backyard chicken owners.
Backyard chickens may be small, but the fight for them pecks at something much bigger: your right to use your own land.
