Can you keep chickens in City of Burlington, NJ?

The rules at a glance

Good to know

• Article XI, Farm Animals, was adopted 4-22-2025 by Ordinance 04-2025.
• Coop must allow at least 2 square feet per chicken, may not exceed 100 square feet, and may not stand taller than 7 feet 6 inches.
• No slaughtering of chickens in the City, and no selling of eggs.
• The same article keeps crowing roosters and other farm animals to a farm, meaning a parcel of 3 acres or more.

What about ducks?

Only on a farm of three acres or more. Burlington City's 2025 rules allow up to six backyard chickens, but other fowl such as ducks count as farm animals, which may be kept only on a farm unless the county health department grants a special permit.

§ 84-82 (Farm animal, Farms); § 84-85A; § 84-84: ""Farm animals" shall refer to sheep, goats, swine, horses, cows, fowl, or animals of like or similar nature. ... other farm animals, as herein defined, shall only be kept on a farm" Duck coops we build.

Building a coop in City of Burlington?

Triano Farms builds custom, predator-proof chicken coops on-site across Burlington County and all of New Jersey, sized to your flock and built to your town's rules.

In an HOA? The town allowing hens is not the same as your association allowing them. What an HOA can and cannot stop.

New to this? Start with how to raise chickens in NJ, or what a coop costs.