Rockingham County, VA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Sec. 17-607 of the Rockingham County Zoning Ordinance sets the density standard for keeping animals or poultry that fall under the code's definition of animal husbandry. In the A-1 and A-2 agricultural districts, a property that does not meet the definition of a 'farm' under Sec. 17-201 is capped at one animal unit per acre, with a hard ceiling of four animal units regardless of lot size; a five-acre non-farm parcel in A-1 doesn't get five animal units, it stops at four. Land that does qualify as a farm falls outside this density cap entirely, reflecting the county's leading agricultural, poultry-heavy economy.

The rule reaches further into more residential and mixed zoning: in the RV, RR-1, PG and I-1 districts, animal husbandry is allowed only for personal use or casual sales, never a commercial operation, and is held to the same one-animal-unit-per-acre, four-unit ceiling. On top of that density cap, those four districts add a hard numeric limit specific to birds: no more than five birds or fowl per lot, regardless of acreage or animal-unit math otherwise available. The standard doesn't set species-specific rules for chickens versus goats or other stock; it works entirely through the animal-unit measure and the per-lot bird count, so someone keeping a small flock in a subdivision zoned RV or RR-1 needs to count against the five-bird cap first, then confirm the property isn't already carrying other animal units against the same one-per-acre allowance.