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Making sense of raising farm animals on your Boulder County property!

Interested in raising animals on your property? The number and type of animals you can keep on land in Boulder County depends on a few factors: Land Use Designation and Type of Animals you want to keep. It can be a little tricky to make sure you are in compliance, but here are some guidelines to help you out.

Zoning: The first thing you need to consider is zoning. What is your property zoned for and what does this zoning allow? The different zoning districts in Boulder County allow a specific number of animals units per acre. Here is a reference for the zoning districts and the animal units/acre.

Zoning District Limits Table

Zone Animal Units Per Acre
A = Agricultural 4
F = Forestry 2
RR = Rural Residential 2
ER = Estate Residential 2
SR = Suburban Residential 0
MF = Multifamily 0
LI = Light Industrial 4
GI = General industrial 4
MI = Mountain Industrial 2

 

Animal Types: The second thing you need to consider is what type of animals you want to have on your property. The interesting thing is different animals count as different numbers of units. Pay attention to this detail!

Animal Units Table

Animal Type Animal Per Animal Unit
Cattle, Buffalo, & Other Livestock 1
Horse, Mule, Donkey 1
Horse (34 inches or less at withers) 5
Swine, Ostrich 5
Goat, Sheep, Llama 5
Poultry 50
Mink and other similar fur-bearing animals 50

 

So how do you determine the number and type of animals you can have on your property? You need to use a calculation based on the animal unit ratios to figure out how many animals of any specific type are allowed on your land. Here is an example from Boulder County:

“If a property owner has 10 acres of land zoned Agricultural (A), they would be allowed a total of 40 animal units on this parcel. This means they could keep 8 horses, 24 head of cattle, 400 chickens, and still be within allowed limitations of the zoning regulations.”[1]

In the example above: 8 horses = 8 animal units, 24 cattle = 24 animal units, and 400 chickens = 8 animal units. Even though this agricultural zoned land would have 432 animals living there, they only have 40 animal units.

Read more on this topic: Keeping Animal in Boulder County

[1]https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/p29-keeping-animals-in-boulder-county.pdf