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

County Code Sec. 5-4, "Keeping of swine," makes it unlawful, and a Class 4 misdemeanor, for anyone to keep swine in the county except in agriculturally zoned areas and only if one of two conditions is met. First, the swine must be kept in an enclosure at least two hundred feet from any inhabited building or residence, or from wells, springs, streams, creeks or brooks. Second, swine may instead be kept within a residential dwelling if the adjoining neighbor or neighbors have given written consent for the animal, and that consent must run for the life of the animal, not just a fixed term.

Chapter 5 does not carry a parallel numeric section for keeping backyard chickens; Sec. 5-1 defines "poultry" as all domestic fowl and game birds raised in captivity and "agricultural animals" as livestock and poultry together, and Sec. 5-5 makes ordinary lot boundary lines a lawful fence as to any livestock. Keeping poultry or other livestock beyond swine is otherwise governed through the Chapter 28 zoning ordinance's use tables rather than a numeric per-animal standard in Chapter 5. Sec. 5-19 separately makes it a Class 4 misdemeanor for a livestock owner to let animals run at large beyond the owner's own land, and Sec. 5-20 makes it unlawful to let animals trespass onto a neighbor's property after being asked to stop.