Apex, NC Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Apex Town Code § 4-3(a) prohibits keeping livestock or male chickens within the town's corporate limits, defining livestock to include cows, goats, sheep, swine, and similar animals. Hens are not banned: only male chickens (roosters) are. Section 4-3(b) exempts horses, ponies, rabbits, and 'fowl except male chickens,' and separately allows miniature pigs, capped at two per dwelling, neutered after eight weeks old, no taller than 20 inches at the shoulder, and kept in the home or a fenced yard or on a leash like a dog. A violation is a misdemeanor under G.S. 14-4. This rule applies within the town's corporate limits; separately, Apex also exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction for zoning and building regulation over a mapped area beyond those limits under UDO Sec. 1.4, but § 4-3's animal-keeping ban is a corporate-limits ordinance, not part of that ETJ zoning reach.