Queen Anne's County, MD Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

The zoning rule on poultry sits in § 18:1-58 of the Queen Anne's County Code, Additional uses and regulations, subsection F. It covers poultry houses, manure storage buildings, outdoor storage of oyster shells, and any other associated structures. In the Agricultural (AG) and Countryside (CS) Districts they must be at least 100 feet from any property line. Subsection (2) adds a 300-foot distance from the common property line when an existing residence not located on the subject property is within 300 feet or less of that line, 300 feet from all other zoning district boundaries, and 300 feet from common property lines of any vacant existing lot of record under five acres in size. Subsection (3) grandfathers existing poultry houses, manure storage buildings, and associated structures. The quoted subsection prints distances, not flock sizes. Subsection G adds a separate set of terms for mega farms: a twenty-foot tree buffer around the active portion of the property and a setback of 300 feet for buildings associated with the operation.

Section 18:1-130A(2) protects older poultry houses further: poultry houses and associated structures are exempt from the nonconforming-use destruction rule, though repairing or replacing a nonconforming poultry house cannot increase the setback nonconformity that existed before.

Chapter 9 governs the animals themselves. Section 9-1 defines livestock as an animal kept, raised, used, or intended for use as food or fiber, or used solely as a work or pack animal. Section 9-15C(2) says the standards of care cannot be construed to impose standards more stringent than normally accepted husbandry practices for livestock. Under § 9-17, unattended livestock count as under restraint only when confined within a fence or enclosure of suitable material capable of holding the animal, and a person can kill any animal seen in the act of pursuing, attacking, wounding, or killing poultry or livestock. Section 9-19A(2) keeps behavior resulting from a farm operation, including raising of poultry and fowl and production of eggs, out of the public nuisance definition.