Clearwater, FL Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Sec. 03, "Keeping of certain animals prohibited," flatly bars keeping, harboring, raising or allowing to run at large any animal that is wild and untamed, bees, reptiles, fowl or livestock, including horses, mules, cows, sheep, hogs or calves, anywhere in the city, public or private. Sec. 04 then lists the only carve-outs: research or teaching animals kept under a governmental permit at an educational institution, licensed veterinary boarding operations, agriculture as a permitted zoning use where the owner keeps farm animals on the premises for dairying or husbandry, licensed horse riding academies and public stables on zoned premises, horses and other animals kept for recreational purposes accessory to a residential use as the zoning ordinance allows, licensed resale establishments, animals kept in public parks or zoos, bird feeders, and, since a 2021 amendment (Ord.

No. 9489-21), the keeping of chickens under Sec. 1 of the Community Development Code. That means backyard chickens are not governed by chapter 8 at all: they were carved out of the general fowl ban and pushed into a separate zoning-code standard that sets its own numeric limits, coop rules and permit steps outside this instrument. Absent one of the Sec. 04 exceptions, keeping any other type of poultry or livestock, such as ducks, geese, goats or pigs, on residential or commercial property remains a straight violation of Sec. 03, enforced by the police department and the SPCA of Clearwater under the administration provisions of Sec. 02.