They Count Your Chickens

October 4th, 2024

Chickens are the powerhouse of the self-sufficiency cell. They need much less space and feed than their cow, pig, and sheep brethren. They make great garden fertilizer. Their eggs and meat (typically healthier than industrial chicken) are an efficient trade for the provisions they require, and are a favorite for small-scale homesteaders looking to live a little more independently. These days, with inflation hitting egg and meat prices full force, the demand for backyard chickens has boomed. What many new keepers don’t anticipate are the multitude of regulations, and even outright bans, waiting to fine them and break up their feathery families.

In Chesterfield, presumably somewhere within their zoning code, you are allowed to keep up to six hens, but no roosters (https://berangrouphomes.com/the-best-places-to-raise-chickens-around-richmond-virginia/).*

Under Colonial Heights code section 98-42, it is illegal to keep any chicken or fowl. Not even as a pet. This law came about in 2020, by a vote margin of one city council member (https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/the-tri-cities/decision-to-ban-chickens-from-colonial-heights-homes-spurs-debate/).

In Hopewell under code section 6-4, you allowed up to six hens, but no roosters, even though they are one of the most effective ways to protect your flock and break up hen fights.

In Dinwiddie the keeping of chickens depends on the zoning classification of your property. In the two types of agricultural zoning keeping chickens is mercifully allowed, though anyone looking to take their egg business full time and keep over 150 chickens is subject a new slew of regulations under Chapter 22, Article VII of the county’s code.

Only one type of residential zoning (out of seven) is allowed to keep chickens. Not even land zoned residential rural district RR1, with a two acre minimum, allows chickens. In residential conservative district R-R zoning, created for waterfront property and required to be at least five acres, you are allowed to have up to 12 hens, provided you never sell any eggs or meat, according to Section 22-241.1. Roosters are not allowed at all.

In Petersburg you are allowed to keep up to four hens, but no roosters under section 18-7 of the city’s code. If you are lucky enough to be one of the few owners of land zoned agricultural, with a minimum requirement of eight acres, you may have a rooster.

Under Prince George code section 90-1035.1 property zoned residential must be at least two acres to keep six chickens, and once again no roosters are allowed.

Many cities like Hopewell and Petersburg have codes on the amenities and cleanliness of your flock’s living space. These codes, while they may make sense, are widely unnecessary. Small-scale chicken keepers go above and beyond in making their chickens happy and healthy because happy, healthy chickens produce more eggs. Each chicken only needs four square feet of coop and ten square feet of yard space; codes requiring several acres are excessive when the average backyard on a one acre plot is sufficient (https://easycoops.com/how-much-space-chickens-need/).

Anyone who has seen the conditions chickens are allowed to be kept in at the industrial level knows the government is not terribly concerned with chicken well-being. These codes only prevent the decentralization of healthy food production, which Virginia desperately needs. The repeal of these codes is ideal, but until then, if you see a backyard chicken: no you didn’t.

-Meredith Hayes, LPSCV Secretary

* Most code sections referenced in this article were found through Library.municode.com. a directory of many city and county codes that allows a keyword search and makes for easier code lookup (especially since it’s a tossup on whether codes on chickens are in animal, agriculture, or zoning sections). Chesterfield does not allow library.municode.com to keep a copy of their zoning code. One must instead slog through an over five hundred page pdf. The author of this article did not have that kind of free time.