Hackensack, NJ Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Section 52-1 requires anyone keeping live fowl, a pig, cow, horse, beast of burden, sheep, goat, or other cattle to first obtain a permit from the Health Department, valid only as long as it remains in force. Applications go to the Health Department on its own forms under Section 52-2, listing the kind of animal, where it will be kept, and how it will be housed. The annual permit fee is set in Chapter 107, Licenses and Permits, and every permit expires March 1 of the following year under Section 52-3.

Section 52-4 sets maintenance standards: animals cannot run at large, must be housed in a suitable outhouse at least 40 feet from any occupied dwelling, the outhouse floor must be concrete or another impervious material graded to drain into a trapped sewer connection, the premises must stay free of offensive odors or fly-breeding waste, manure must be kept in covered watertight metal containers removed from the property at least once a week, and manure pits are flatly prohibited. Section 52-6 then bans keeping any animal or fowl listed in Section 52-1, except chicken hens, within the city's Residence Districts R-1, R-1A, R-2, R-2A, R-3, and R-3A.

That carve-out means a resident can keep hens in a residential zone, but roosters, pigs, goats, and every other animal on the Section 52-1 list remain barred there, and even an exempted chicken hen still needs the Health Department permit required citywide.