In unincorporated Santa Rosa County, poultry and livestock are permitted agricultural uses allowed in agriculturally zoned districts, not residential ones. Bona fide farm operations are shielded from nuisance suits by Florida's Right to Farm Act.
Whether you may keep chickens or livestock turns on your zoning under the county Land Development Code, not the animal ordinance. Poultry and livestock are classified as agricultural uses and are permitted in agriculturally zoned districts; the Estate Residential district expressly forbids keeping livestock or fowl, and residential districts generally do not allow poultry farms. The animal ordinance's nuisance section notes that 'animal' includes fowl 'except in agriculturally zoned districts.' A bona fide farm operation of a year or more that follows generally accepted practices is protected from nuisance claims by the Florida Right to Farm Act (FS 823.14). Check your parcel's zoning with the Property Appraiser or Development Services before adding animals.
Keeping poultry or livestock in a district where the use is not permitted is a land-development / zoning violation enforced by county code enforcement; animal-nuisance keeping is a civil infraction.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Santa Rosa County, FL
Backyard composting of yard and food scraps is allowed in Santa Rosa County with no permit for home-scale piles. Keep compost contained and free of odor and ...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Santa Rosa County has no ordinance banning residential artificial turf, and it is not counted as required landscaping. The county's landscape code favors nat...
Santa Rosa County, FL
New development in Santa Rosa County must use native, Florida-Friendly species and may not plant invasive exotics. Existing single-family and duplex homes ar...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Rain barrels and rainwater harvesting are legal and encouraged in Santa Rosa County. Florida places no state restriction on collecting rainwater for irrigati...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Santa Rosa County lies in the Northwest Florida Water Management District, which imposes NO day-of-week landscape-irrigation limits. Everyday lawn watering i...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Santa Rosa County Code Enforcement does not investigate vegetative overgrowth — grass, limbs, or woods — on private property. There is no active county weed-...
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