Terrebonne Parish, LA Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Article V of Chapter 5 regulates livestock rather than backyard poultry directly, and its core rule, § 5-76, makes it unlawful for an owner, keeper, or person in charge of a horse, mule, hog, pig, sheep, goat, ox, cow or other livestock to let the animal run at large anywhere in the parish. There is no separate parish ordinance in this chapter naming chickens or fowl, so a loose flock would fall under this section only if a chicken or duck were treated as 'other livestock' under the section's catch-all language.

Once livestock is found running at large, § 5-77 directs the parish police to take it up and impound it, and § 5-78 requires the parish to publish notice of the impoundment once in a parish newspaper. The owner then has five days from that publication to redeem the animal under § 5-79, paying $5 per animal for each day, or part of a day, that the parish held it; paying that fee does not stop the parish from separately prosecuting the running-at-large violation. If nobody redeems the livestock within that five-day window, § 5-80 directs the chief of police to sell it at public auction, with the proceeds going to the parish.

Because § 5-76 does not print its own fine, prosecution for the underlying at-large violation runs through the parish's general penalty clause, § 1-6, which allows up to a $500 fine, up to 30 days in the parish jail, or both, with each day the violation continues counted as a separate offense.