Canton, OH Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Canton regulates backyard livestock and fowl through two adjoining sections of Chapter 505, Animals and Fowl. Section 505.11 prohibits constructing or maintaining chicken or rabbit pens or chicken runways within fifty feet of any building used as a residence, carried over from the 1964 Code Section 501.12. Section 505.08 imposes distance rules for larger animals: a goat may not be housed within 100 feet of the nearest dwelling and must be tethered so it cannot roam within that 100-foot buffer, while a pony or horse may not be housed within seventy-five feet of the nearest dwelling and must likewise be tethered to stay outside that seventy-five-foot zone.

A related provision, Section 505.10, separately bans keeping a hog pen or barnyard next to another's lot if its contents would discharge onto that lot, or letting any pen, stable or barnyard housing horses, mules, cattle, livestock or fowl become foul, nauseous or offensive to residents' health. None of these sections require a permit for small numbers of animals kept at the specified distances; the fifty, seventy-five and 100-foot setbacks are themselves the operative limit, and Chapter 1123's zoning rules for residential districts apply on top of them. The Canton Health Department and City Nuisance Inspector, per Section 505.19, enforce these setbacks alongside the general nuisance-conditions ban in Section 505.04.