Livestock keeping in unincorporated Santa Rosa County is a zoning matter: farm animals are permitted in agriculturally zoned districts and barred in the Estate Residential district. Bona fide farms are protected from nuisance suits by Florida's Right to Farm Act.
The county animal ordinance regulates only dogs and cats, so livestock is controlled through the Land Development Code's zoning. Livestock and fowl are agricultural uses allowed in agriculturally zoned districts; the Estate Residential district expressly prohibits keeping livestock or fowl, and residential districts generally do not permit them. Where farming is allowed, a bona fide farm operation that has run for a year or more and follows generally accepted agricultural and management practices is protected from public or private nuisance claims by the Florida Right to Farm Act (FS 823.14). Confirm your parcel's zoning classification with Development Services before keeping horses, cattle, goats, or similar animals.
Keeping livestock where zoning does not allow it is a land-development violation subject to county code-enforcement action; odor or noise from animals kept in nuisance numbers is a civil infraction under the animal ordinance.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Santa Rosa County, FL
Backyard composting of yard and food scraps is allowed in Santa Rosa County with no permit for home-scale piles. Keep compost contained and free of odor and ...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Santa Rosa County has no ordinance banning residential artificial turf, and it is not counted as required landscaping. The county's landscape code favors nat...
Santa Rosa County, FL
New development in Santa Rosa County must use native, Florida-Friendly species and may not plant invasive exotics. Existing single-family and duplex homes ar...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Rain barrels and rainwater harvesting are legal and encouraged in Santa Rosa County. Florida places no state restriction on collecting rainwater for irrigati...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Santa Rosa County lies in the Northwest Florida Water Management District, which imposes NO day-of-week landscape-irrigation limits. Everyday lawn watering i...
Santa Rosa County, FL
Santa Rosa County Code Enforcement does not investigate vegetative overgrowth — grass, limbs, or woods — on private property. There is no active county weed-...
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