Can you keep chickens in Township of Millstone, NJ?

The rules at a glance

Good to know

• Zoning defines agriculture to include the raising and breeding of poultry (§ 35-2-2).
• Farms and farm buildings are permitted as a matter of right in the rural zones; the R-20 residential zone lists only farm buildings and farm storage barns (§ 35-5-9.1).
• The separate Right to Farm chapter recognizes farming throughout the Township regardless of zoning (§ 27-1.1).
• A search of the whole code for chicken, poultry, fowl, coop and livestock found no backyard chicken ordinance, no hen cap and no permit.

What about ducks?

Only as part of a farm on a larger lot. Millstone counts raising poultry as agriculture, which covers ducks the same way it covers chickens.

§ 35-2-2 (Agriculture); § 35-5-6.1: "and/or the raising and breeding of poultry, horses and livestock including dairies, nurseries" Duck coops we build.

Building a coop in Township of Millstone?

Triano Farms builds custom, predator-proof chicken coops on-site across Monmouth 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.