Perth Amboy, NJ Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Chapter 362, Sanitation, regulates livestock and poultry in Article V, Swine, Cattle, Goats and Fowl. Under § 362-11, any person who wants to keep fowl, swine, cows or goats within the City of Perth Amboy must, before keeping them, apply to the Division of Health in writing. The application states the location of the enclosure and the approximate number of animals to be kept there. No one can keep the animals unless the Division of Health acts favorably on the petition and grants a permit in writing.

Section 362-12 repeats the permit rule for fowl and adds the first distance limit: no building, yard or apartment in which fowl are continuously kept can be built or maintained within twenty-five (25) feet of any door or window of any dwelling. Section 362-14 sets a second twenty-five (25) foot limit. No goat pen, chicken coop, runway, yard or other place for keeping any goat, chicken, duck, goose or other fowl can be maintained nearer than twenty-five (25) feet to any building used in whole or in part for human habitation or as a place where food is prepared, placed, kept or sold. The exception is fowl kept in crates for sale or killing. Each crate must be kept clean, must sit on a watertight floor or pavement flushed thoroughly with water daily, and no crate holding live fowl can be in the same room as food other than live fowl.

Maintenance rules follow. Section 362-13 requires any fowl, swine, cow, goat or other animal with a contagious or communicable disease to be promptly destroyed by the owner or person in possession. Section 362-15 requires every stable, pen, coop or runway for a horse, mule, donkey, bovine, goat, chicken, duck, goose or other fowl to be kept clean and free from accumulation of filth, garbage, rubbish or other waste. Under § 362-16, the Division of Health can require by written notice that manure or excrement be removed as often as it deems necessary. Slaughtering, killing or dressing fowl in the City of Perth Amboy is not allowed except at authorized slaughterhouses unless the Division of Health grants a permit, at $200 per annum from January 1 to December 31 (§ 362-22). This page covers the Chapter 362 sanitation rules; the zoning chapter is a separate instrument.