Bellevue, NE Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Section 6-2 is a flat, always-in-effect rule: no owner or keeper of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl or any other fowl may permit the bird to run at large within the city, with no exception written into the section itself. The code does not set a separate coop-distance, flock-size or keeping permit for backyard chickens; confinement to the owner's property is the operative rule. Section 6-3(A) is broader, making it unlawful for the owner of any animal, licensed or not, to let it run at large out of the owner's control.

Section 6-3(B) then singles out livestock, horses, mules, cattle, hogs, sheep and goats, and bars an owner from herding those animals on the streets, avenues, alleys, parks, open grounds or public grounds, or from picketing, lariating, tying or otherwise securing them by rope on any public street, alley, park, railroad right-of-way, private ground or vacant lot, unless the owner, agent, occupant, tenant or person in possession of that ground has consented. Enforcement runs through the humane officer, police officers, code enforcement officers or the officers of the city's contracted animal control authority under § 6-8, and interfering with any of them is itself a separate violation of the chapter.

Section 6-9(D) singles out § 6-2 violations for a simplified $25.00 mail-in citation that lets an owner plead guilty and pay by mail or electronically without a court appearance, a shortcut not extended to the § 6-3 livestock provisions.