Wayne County, IN Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Wayne County Code § 156.075(B)(1) gives owners of three-to-under-five-acre tracts in the A-1 Agricultural District, with a minimum 275 feet of lot width, exactly three options for keeping agricultural animals and poultry: two agricultural animals, 20 poultry, or ten poultry and one agricultural animal. Subsection (2) requires that all agricultural animals and poultry be appropriately contained within the property's boundaries, and subsection (3) flatly bars agricultural animals, including poultry, on any tract smaller than three acres. Larger-scale animal husbandry is treated differently: § 156.076(B) removes it from the principal-permitted-use list on tracts under five acres and routes it instead through the Board of Zoning Appeals as a special exception under §§ 156.505 through 156.509, unless it qualifies as the dwelling use in § 156.075(A)(2).

Confined feeding operations, concentrated animal feeding operations, and satellite manure storage structures face the same special-exception requirement under § 156.076(C). Commercial dog breeding, unlimited kennels, and domestic pet grooming facilities are likewise special exceptions under § 156.076(E), separate from the small and large kennel uses already permitted by right under § 156.075(A)(5). These layered thresholds mean a hobbyist on a three-acre A-1 parcel can keep chickens outright, while anyone wanting a larger operation, or land under three acres, must go to the Wayne County Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals first.