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

In the City of Paramount, California, backyard chickens and other livestock are barred by the zoning code. The household pets provision of the R-1 single-family zone, Section 17.08.020(F), allows household pets customarily incidental to a residence when no commercial activity is involved, but states that livestock including cattle, sheep and goats, horses, rabbits, rodents, poultry, and fowl are prohibited. It also caps the household at no more than three adult animals of any species per dwelling unit, excepting birds covered by Section 6.44.020 and fish in an aquarium, and treats an animal as an adult when over four months of age or capable of reproducing. The R-2 zone repeats the ban in Section 17.12.020(G), and the R-M multiple family zone does so in Section 17.16.040(M), where the list reads livestock, horses, rabbits, poultry, and fowl.

Title 6 adds its own conditions. Section 6.20.040 declares it a nuisance to let rabbits, permitted birds or fowl run or fly at large or go upon the premises of another person. Section 6.20.030 forbids letting any ox, steer, bull, cow, horse, colt, calf, sheep or goat run at large, be tied in a street, lane, alley or park, or be left overnight staked instead of in a pen, corral or barn, and it requires necessary sustenance, drink and shelter. Section 6.44.030 makes horse keeping unlawful in residential areas zoned R-1, R-2, R-3 or R-4 once it constitutes a menace to health, safety or public peace and the City Manager served a cease and desist notice 30 days earlier.

Racing pigeons are the carve-out. Section 6.44.020 requires a permit from the City Clerk with a five dollar application fee, caps a keeper at 100 homing pigeons, and bars keeping or liberating them within 25 feet of any door, window or other opening of a dwelling. Section 6.32.050 requires every stable, barn, stall, pen or coop to be kept clean and sanitary, and Section 6.32.130 prohibits slaughter within the City, with exceptions for educational institutions, research, licensed veterinarians and licensed slaughterhouses. Where it is unclear whether an animal counts as a household pet, the Planning Director can require a Chapter 6.40 permit.