Champaign, IL Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Section 7-19(a)-(d) requires a City license to possess a hen, caps hens at six per property, bans roosters outright, and limits eligibility to people residing on single-family or two-family parcels. Care rules under § 7-19(e) prohibit hens from running at large, require a coop and run (or a fenced yard of six feet or higher for supervised exercise), rodent-proof feed storage, and compliance with the fencing standards in § 9-2. Housing standards under § 7-19(f) confine the coop and run to the rear yard only, at least five feet from the property line and twenty feet from any neighboring dwelling, with ventilation, predator-proof mesh, a fully enclosed run including a top, a minimum of four square feet of coop floor and eight square feet of run per hen, and weekly waste removal with no detectable odor at the property line; coops over 120 square feet need a building permit and are treated as accessory structures under § 37-222.

Licensing under § 7-19(g) costs $25, auto-renews if the licensee stays compliant, can be denied to anyone owing the City money or convicted of a Chapter 7, 21, 22 or 37 violation in the prior five years, and is limited to one per zoning lot, non-transferable. Separately, § 7-5(a) bans keeping any other poultry (turkeys, geese, ducks) or livestock (goats, sheep, swine, cattle, horses, hoof stock, farm animals including pygmy varieties) anywhere in the city.