Cocoa, FL Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Cocoa's animal ordinance, codified at City Code § 5-32, draws a hard line between "domestic animals" (defined at § 5-31 to include equines, bovines, goats, sheep, swine, poultry and other domesticated beasts or birds) and "non-domestic animals," which the code defines as any animal that is not a domestic animal or a household pet (dogs, cats, birds and similar animals commonly kept inside a residential dwelling). Section 5-32 states flatly that no person may keep, maintain, breed or otherwise possess any non-domestic animal within the city limits of Cocoa; no zoning exception applies to that category the way it does for domestic livestock.

Even the domestic-animal category is not a free pass: § 5-32 only lets a resident keep, breed or maintain a domestic animal "where specifically allowed by the city's zoning ordinance and only in the manner provided by said ordinance," meaning a horse or goat in a residential district still needs the zoning code's blessing, not just this animal chapter's silence. Cocoa also incorporates Brevard County's animal control ordinance by reference at § 5-1, so county animal control officers share enforcement authority with the city's own enforcement official.

Section 5-33 gives the city enforcement official or a county animal control officer the right to enter private property, other than a dwelling or fenced enclosure, to investigate a suspected violation, and lets an impounding officer enter a fenced enclosure to seize an animal known or suspected of biting, scratching, or showing signs of rabies. Because the ban in § 5-32 covers any animal outside the domestic and household-pet definitions, it reaches reptiles, primates, big cats and other exotics that residents elsewhere sometimes keep as novelty pets; none of that is legal to possess inside Cocoa city limits.