Sauk County, WI Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Sec. 7.047 sets the county's residential poultry allowance apart from ordinary farming, which Sec. 7.046 exempts from a land use permit altogether. The residential standard applies in the single-family (SFR), multiple-family (MFR) and rural community (RUC) zoning districts, and on exclusive agriculture (EA) or agriculture (AG) lots only where the lot already carries an occupied dwelling; it governs poultry and egg production, not poultry raised as part of a working farm. The headcount scales with lot size: a lot under two acres may keep no more than six poultry, and a lot of two acres or more may keep up to 12, always sharing the same lot as the dwelling.

Roosters and crowing cockerels are prohibited outright under subsection (3), regardless of lot size. Every coop needs a written description filed with the land use permit application, and a coop may be built as part of an accessory structure but never inside the dwelling itself. Fencing is mandatory: subsection (4) requires poultry to be kept fenced to prevent them from trespassing onto neighboring properties. Coop and related structures must sit at least 25 feet from any side or rear yard, with the road right-of-way setback set separately under Sec.

7.098. A permit exemption exists for small operations: in the SFR, MFR and RUC districts, poultry structures of 120 square feet or less do not need a Zoning Administrator-issued land use permit as long as every other standard in the section is met.