Sussex County, DE Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

' The 'not as a business' language is the dividing line in the code: personal-use keeping of these animals is a permitted use requiring only compliance with the setback, while commercial-scale keeping shifts into the farm-specific standards of Section 115-20B, which apply on farms of five acres or more and add distance requirements scaled to the type of operation, such as commercial poultry-raising structures sitting at least 50 feet from boundary lines and 200 feet from a UB, B-1 or residential district boundary or off-site dwelling, and commercial feed lots for cattle, sheep or hogs sitting at least 100 feet from boundary lines with the same 200-foot residential buffer.

Section 115-21B separately allows, as an accessory use available without a five-acre farm, the 'keeping of small animals, insects, reptiles, fish or birds, but only for personal enjoyment or household use and not as a business,' which covers smaller-scale keeping like a backyard coop that does not rise to the stable-structure or feed-lot scale addressed in Section 115-20A(8). Commercial dog kennels are addressed separately in Section 115-21A(2) and Section 115-23, requiring open pens, runs or cages to sit at least 200 feet from any lot lines.