Charlotte County, FL Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Sec. 3-9-69(b)(2) governs domestic animal breeding, boarding, and training as a conditional use, and it's this section's chicken-specific standards that control backyard flocks: the property must be located in the rural service area, chickens shall be provided with a covered nesting box within an enclosed yard, and that enclosure can only go in a side or rear yard, sufficiently screened from the street and from neighboring properties. The same subsection requires the enclosure to be kept sanitary, free of accumulated excrement and objectionable odor, and built and maintained so rodents and other pests can't be harbored underneath, within, or inside its walls, while also protecting the birds from predators.

Under the county's environmental and agricultural use table at Sec. 2, raising of poultry is a permitted, by-right use in the Agricultural (AG) and Estuary Marine (EM) zoning districts, so a coop that meets Sec. 3-9-69(b)(2)'s standards there doesn't need a separate conditional-use hearing. Separately, larger livestock is regulated under Chapter 1-4: Sec. 1 makes it a violation for a livestock owner to let animals stray, or in any manner run at large, on public land or someone else's land without permission, where that poses a threat to public safety, and Sec. 1-4-25(s) defines livestock to include horses, cattle, goats, sheep, mules, hogs and other grazing animals.