Revere, MA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

02 of the Revere Municipal Code treats poultry as a nondomesticated animal and forbids anyone from keeping a live chicken, rooster, duck, goose, or any other fowl in the city. 040. Those rules cap a lot at six hens, restrict keeping to residential properties, and make the resident of the dwelling on the lot personally responsible for ownership, care, and control. No roosters are permitted on any lot in the city. Hen houses must meet the same accessory-structure setback and dimensional standards as any other outbuilding, and neither hens nor henhouses may sit in a front yard or in a side yard that abuts a street.

Shared buildings get an outright ban: chicken coops are not allowed on shared porches, balconies, decks, or rooftops of duplex condominiums, two-family structures, or multifamily buildings. Beyond siting, the board of health controls the program directly: it must issue the license, write the license application requirements, and separately regulate how chicken waste is managed and disposed of and how any slaughtering of chickens is carried out. A resident who wants hens therefore needs both a zoning-compliant coop and a board of health license before a single bird can legally go on the lot.