Prince William County, VA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Chapter 32's accessory-use standards treat backyard poultry and livestock as a Dillon Rule zoning question, not an animal-control one: Sec. 6 starts by declaring that farm animals, cattle, pigs, hogs, goats, sheep, horses, mules and "similar utilitarian animals," are barred from every residential district and from agricultural lots smaller than ten acres unless one of the listed exceptions applies. Chickens and other fowl fall under subsections (c) and (d). On A-1 Agricultural-zoned lots of one acre or larger, chickens are permitted by-right as long as the lot sits inside the county's Domestic Fowl Overlay District (mapped separately at Part 508), and on A-1 lots of ten acres or larger, chickens are permitted outside the overlay too.

Smaller Semi-Rural Residential (SRR) lots of one acre or larger inside the overlay can only keep chickens after a Special Use Permit is approved under subsection (d). Cattle get a narrower carve-out: subsection (e) allows them only in the A-1 district, only inside the Domestic Fowl Overlay District, on lots of two acres or larger, at a rate of one animal for every acre beyond the first, and any enclosure fencing must meet the separate fencing standards at Sec. 3. Horses and other equines are governed by subsections (a) and (b) at the same one-per-acre-over-one ratio in A-1 and SR zoning.

None of these accessory-use allowances waive state health requirements for keeping livestock; they only set the zoning threshold for whether the use is allowed on the lot at all.