Madison County, IL Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

205(B) makes it a public nuisance for a cat owner to let the cat damage another person's real or personal property anywhere in the unincorporated county. 205(C) separately makes it a nuisance for the owner of a cat six months of age or older to let it run at large, meaning on a public way or public place, or on private premises belonging to someone other than the cat's keeper, unless the cat is under a leash or another recognized control method; the section expressly does not apply once the cat has been spayed or neutered, which removes most owned cats from the at-large rule entirely.

302, added by Ord. 2022-01, gives Madison County's free-roaming, feral and barn cats a separate legal track. 300. 302(A), the Board requires caregivers to keep community cats on their own property or with the property owner's permission, to make reasonable efforts to have the cats sterilized, vaccinated against rabies and ear-tipped, and to provide ongoing food, water and medical care without allowing a suffering cat to go untreated. 302(B), and healthy impounded community cats skip the standard holding period, going instead to sterilization and ear-tipping before release back to the location found, to the caregiver, or to adoption.