Iowa City, IA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Iowa City Code section 8-4-12(F) requires anyone who wants to raise, harbor, or keep chickens to first obtain an urban chicken permit from the Police Chief or designee. The applicant files a written application with the permit fee, and the Chief has 30 days to approve or deny it against standards set by City Council resolution; a denial must come with written reasons, and the owner can appeal to the City Manager or designee within ten days. Once issued, the permit is good for three years and cannot be sold, transferred, or assigned to a new owner or property, so a chicken-keeping household that moves has to reapply.

The ordinance exempts urban chicken permits from the general animal permit standards in subsections A through D of section 8-4-12 and from section 8-4-15, running instead on its own rules adopted by Council resolution, which also set the permit fee. Other livestock get treated differently. The definitions in section 8-4-1 classify cattle, goats, horses, sheep, pigs, farm deer, and poultry as livestock, and separately list other small livestock-type animals as restricted animals that need a permit from the Division of Animal Control under section 8-4-6(B), plus compliance with the city's zoning code, since keeping livestock on residential property is a land-use question as much as an animal-control one.

Rheas and peafowl get the same restricted-animal-plus-zoning treatment. Pigeon and dove lofts are flatly prohibited unless the loft predates July 1, 1997, and even those grandfathered lofts are capped at 30 birds since July 1, 2000, with the exemption non-transferable to a new owner or property.