Iowa City, IA Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Section 8-4-1 defines a PIGEON OR DOVE LOFT as any cage, loft, or enclosure keeping five or more pigeons or doves. Section 8-4-6(C) then states flatly that 'pigeon lofts and dove lofts are prohibited within the City,' with a single grandfather clause for anyone who owned or operated a loft before July 1, 1997. That grandfathered loft was capped at forty birds as of the 1997 effective date and then stepped down to a hard ceiling of thirty pigeons and/or doves at any one time as of July 1, 2000, a cap still in force today.

The exemption is personal and locational: subsection C(3) states it 'shall not be transferable to another person or another property,' so selling the house or handing the birds to someone else ends the grandfathered status and the loft becomes an outright violation of the ban. Keeping fewer than five pigeons or doves falls outside the loft definition entirely and is not separately restricted by this section, though the general noisy-animal and waste-accumulation nuisance rules in section 8-4-5 still reach droppings, odor, or disturbance complaints regardless of how many birds are kept.