Kirkwood, MO Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Chapter 4's livestock provisions treat poultry and grazing animals separately from dogs and cats. Section 4-6 requires owners to keep poultry confined on their own premises rather than allowing chickens, ducks, or other fowl to range the neighborhood; § 4-7 imposes the same at-large prohibition on 'any horse, cow, swine, goat or other grazing animal' anywhere in a street or public place. Anyone who wants to keep livestock, defined in § 4-8 as 'any horse, cattle, swine, goat, or other animal belonging to the same genus,' has to comply with the siting rules in § 4-9: the livestock yard, meaning any pen, stable, dairy, yard, or similar enclosure, cannot sit within 100 feet of a residential building unless that building belongs to the livestock owner, and the lot must scale up with the herd, from a half-acre for one animal to two full acres for a third.

Anything beyond three animals needs a special use exception from the City. Kirkwood added a Fair Housing Act carve-out to § 4-9 in 2024 (Ord. No. 10861), letting the City grant a reasonable accommodation exception to these siting rules for people with disabilities who need an assistance or service animal, following the City's Reasonable Accommodation Policy and Procedure. Section 4-10 directs that §§ 4-8 and 4-9 be read together with the rest of the City's nuisance and animal ordinances rather than in isolation. None of these three sections carries its own criminal penalty, so a violation defaults to Kirkwood's general Code penalty in § 1-8.