Hercules, CA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

2 and Food and Agricultural Code Section 30501. 02 goes further and states that the adoption itself is the City's formal request that County Ordinance Code Division 416 apply within Hercules, so County Animal Services, not a city department, is the enforcing agency for keeping standards, nuisance complaints and animal counts on residential and rural-residential lots. 230 of the Specific Land Use Requirements chapter cross-references the same framework, stating that animal raising and keeping citywide is regulated through Contra Costa County Animal Control Ordinance No.

80-97, as amended. The Municipal Code does carve out one narrow protection unrelated to zoning: Section 5-2's food-facility provisions bar keeping live chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys or other fowl in any cellar, basement, grocery store or market where foodstuffs are sold, but that rule targets food-safety in commercial space, not residential backyard keeping. Because the operative substantive limits, such as how many hens or larger animals a given lot size may support and required coop distances from dwellings, live entirely in the adopted county code rather than the Hercules Municipal Code text itself, a resident checking whether a rooster or a goat is allowed on their Hercules parcel needs to consult Contra Costa County's Division 416, filed with the City Clerk, not a Hercules-specific chapter.