Killeen, TX Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Section 6-159 carves backyard chickens out of Killeen's general livestock-and-fowl ban for any residential zoning district. A resident may keep no more than eight hens, confined in a coop located at least 25 feet from any habitable structure on a neighboring property, measured to protect adjacent homes from noise and odor. The hens must stay within the backyard rather than roaming the rest of the lot or leaving the property, and the coop itself must be kept in a sanitary condition; the ordinance separately bans letting chicken waste accumulate on the property.

Nuisance odors and excessive noise from the flock cannot be allowed to travel past the property line, tying the chicken rule back into Killeen's general animal-nuisance standards under Sec. 6-37. Roosters are prohibited outright in residential zoning districts, the one exception being agricultural zones where Killeen's broader livestock rules already apply. Because the eight-hen allowance is a residential-zoning carve-out rather than a full livestock exemption, it sits alongside, not instead of, Sec. 6-153's general prohibition on livestock, swine and fowl and the AG/AR-1 zoning exemption in Sec. 6-154; a resident who wants more than eight hens, or who wants a rooster, needs land zoned for agricultural use.