Wicomico County, MD Animal Ordinances: Chickens & Livestock (2026)

Wicomico County Code § 225-106, Poultry houses, splits personal keeping from commercial operations. Under Subsection A, poultry may be kept, raised or bred for the use of people living on the property as long as any structural enclosure, not counting fencing, does not exceed 256 square feet of gross floor area, and that enclosure must sit back from the property line per the standard district setback table in § 225-70. Commercial-scale poultry houses are treated very differently: new poultry houses in the Agricultural-Rural (A-1), Town Transition, Village Conservation, General Commercial, Regional Commercial or Light Industrial districts must carry a vegetative buffer of at least three staggered rows of plants on 10-foot centers, keep a 400-foot setback from any off-parcel residential dwelling, school, church, nursing home, day-care center, manufactured home park or 10-plus-lot subdivision, a 200-foot setback from all property lines, and an accessway of at least 60 feet where a new house directly accesses a county road.

In the R-8, R-15, R-20 and R-30 residential districts, new commercial poultry house construction is barred outright unless the Board of Appeals grants a special exception, and if granted, tunnel ventilation fans must be set back 500 feet if facing away from a residence (or similarly protected use) and 600 feet if facing toward one. Existing, legally nonconforming poultry houses may be enlarged or replaced up to 25% of their footprint without Board action, as long as the work does not come within 100 feet of a property line or violate current minimum setbacks for any newly sited structure.