Franklin County, WA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

130 defines one animal unit as, among other things, twenty chickens or twenty fowl (or twenty rabbits), and folds those animals into the same accessory-use formula that governs horses, goats and sheep in residential zones. 030(D) allows one animal unit for each full 10,000-square-foot increment of the parcel above the 12,000-square-foot area set aside for the house, but caps chickens, fowl or rabbits at two animal units regardless of how much land remains, meaning no more than forty birds or rabbits on any RS-12 lot.

Barns, barnyards, chicken houses and corrals housing those animals must sit at least twenty-five feet from a public roadway and at least ten feet from any adjoining property held under separate ownership. The same 10,000-square-foot-per-animal-unit formula and two-animal-unit chicken/fowl/rabbit cap recur through Franklin County's other suburban and residential zones, so the practical chicken allowance scales with how much of the lot sits beyond the zone's minimum house footprint. Swine and pigs are carved out of the general animal unit count entirely and instead follow their own separate head-count standards that vary by lot size and whether the parcel sits inside an urban growth area.

Larger-scale poultry or egg production tied to a genuine agricultural operation is instead governed by the head-count standards written into the county's agricultural production zones, not the residential animal-unit formula.