Can you have chickens in Herriman, Utah?

You can have chickens in Herriman, Utah, in many neighborhoods, but only hens, and how many depends on your zone and your lot size. Roosters are not allowed anywhere in the city.

Herriman splits the question into two rule sets. The standard single-family zones, R-1-10 and R-1-15, allow backyard chickens and nothing else in the way of farm animals. The larger-lot agricultural and estate zones allow chickens as part of a wider animal allowance that also covers goats, sheep and horses. Both rule sets come from section 10-29-7 of the Herriman City Code, which the city summarizes in two handouts, Backyard Chickens and Agricultural Animals (herriman.gov, checked October 2026). The city says the code itself is the controlling text, so treat the handouts as a guide and the code as the answer.

Herriman chicken rules by zone

Zone	Chickens allowed	How many	Other animals	Key distances
R-1-10, R-1-15	Hens only	Set by lot size: 0, 4, 6 or 10	None. Chickens are the only agricultural animal allowed	Coop at least 25 feet from any house on an adjacent lot; run behind a fence in the side or rear yard
A-.25, A-.50, A-1, R-1-21, R-1-43	Hens, counted as small animals	Up to 40 small animals on lots of 0.49 acre or less, 75 on 0.5 to 0.99 acre, 100 per acre on an acre or more	Ducks, rabbits, goats, sheep, horses and others, by lot size	Animals at least 40 feet from any house on an adjacent lot; coops and pens at least 40 feet from any street
Zones not listed above	Not covered by either handout	Ask Planning	Ask Planning	Ask Planning

Sources: Herriman City Backyard Chickens and Agricultural Animals handouts, summarizing Herriman City Code 10-29-7, checked October 2026.

How many hens in R-1-10 and R-1-15

Most Herriman buyers asking about chickens are looking at an ordinary single-family lot, so this is the table that matters. In the R-1-10 and R-1-15 zones, the limit is set by lot size (Herriman City Backyard Chickens handout, checked October 2026):

Lot size	Maximum hens
Under 5,000 square feet	0
5,000 to 7,999 square feet	4
8,000 to 9,999 square feet	6
10,000 square feet or more	10

The lot size is the whole parcel, not the backyard. The county parcel record shows it. A house can sit in an R-1-10 zone and still be on a lot that falls into a lower bracket, so check the number for the specific parcel rather than inferring it from the zone name.

What Herriman does not allow

These rules apply in the R-1-10 and R-1-15 zones, and several of them apply citywide:

No roosters. Not in the single-family zones and not in the agricultural zones. The single-family rules also ban crowing hens, so a hen that starts crowing has to go too.
No ducks, geese, turkeys or peafowl in R-1-10 and R-1-15. Ducks are allowed in the agricultural zones as small animals; geese and turkeys count as medium animals there.
No egg sales. Chickens in the single-family zones are for personal use only. Selling eggs or manure, or breeding chickens commercially, is prohibited.
No front-yard coops. The enclosure has to sit entirely behind a fence in the side or rear yard, and the birds must stay contained so they cannot escape.
No pigs, anywhere. Not relevant to most chicken questions, but worth knowing if the plan was a small homestead.

Two things Herriman does allow that surprise people: slaughtering your own chickens on the property, out of public view and done humanely and sanitarily, and in the agricultural zones, temporarily doubling animal numbers for meat or milk production or a genuine 4-H or fair project (Herriman City Agricultural Animals handout, checked October 2026).

The setback that decides most backyards

The rule that actually stops people is not the hen count. In R-1-10 and R-1-15, the coop must be at least 25 feet from any house on an adjacent lot (Herriman City Backyard Chickens handout, checked October 2026). Herriman also treats a coop as an accessory building, so it has to meet the accessory building rules for that zone as well.

Picture the backyard with a 25-foot arc drawn out from each neighbor’s house. On a deep lot with a wide yard, there is plenty of room left over. On a narrower newer lot where the houses on either side sit close to the property line, those arcs can cover most of the yard, and the only legal spot may be a back corner you had planned for something else. The rule is measured to the neighbor’s house, not to the fence, so you cannot fix it by moving your own patio.

In the agricultural zones, the distance is larger: 40 feet from any house on an adjacent lot, and coops, pens, barns and corrals at least 40 feet from any street. That second rule matters on corner lots, where two sides face a street.

Your HOA can say no even where the city says yes

City code sets what the law allows. Covenants, conditions and restrictions can be stricter, and much of Herriman’s newer housing sits inside an association. An HOA can ban poultry outright, limit where a coop goes, or require architectural approval for any structure in the yard, and the city’s permission does not override that.

When you read the CC&Rs, search them for “poultry,” “fowl,” “chickens,” “livestock,” “animals” and “accessory structures.” If the language is vague, ask the association in writing before you remove contingencies. Whether a Herriman home has an HOA explains how to get the documents and what else to look for in them.

I tell clients who want chickens to say so at the first showing, not after the inspection. It knocks houses off the list early, and the ones that are left are the ones that work.

How Herriman compares with southern Utah

The rules in Washington County are written city by city and vary more than people expect. St. George counts hens and rabbits together, Hurricane uses a points system, and Ivins starts allowing hens at a different lot size. If you are weighing a move between the two ends of the state, the Washington County chicken rules lay those out. Herriman is simpler: one table for the standard single-family zones, one for the agricultural zones, and roosters banned in both.

When you want more than a few hens

If the plan includes ducks, goats, a milk cow or a horse, the R-1-10 and R-1-15 zones are the wrong place to look, because chickens are the only agricultural animal those zones allow. You want a parcel zoned A-.25, A-.50, A-1, R-1-21 or R-1-43. Search by zone on the city’s map rather than by a listing’s description, and remember that a parcel in one of those zones can still sit inside a subdivision whose CC&Rs restrict animals. What to know before buying horse property in Herriman walks through how zoning, covenants and water interact on those parcels.

Lot size also varies more across Herriman than the city’s reputation suggests. Do Herriman homes have big lots covers where the larger parcels actually are.

How to check a specific Herriman house

Find the zone. Use Herriman’s interactive zoning map or call the Planning Department at 801-446-5323. Do not guess from the size of the yard.
Find the lot size. The Salt Lake County parcel record has it. It sets the hen limit in R-1-10 and R-1-15.
Read the CC&Rs. If the house is in an HOA, this is often the deciding document.
Walk the setbacks. Stand in the backyard and estimate where 25 feet from each neighbor’s house lands. If there is nowhere left for a coop behind a fence, the answer is no regardless of zone.
Read 10-29-7 itself or ask Planning. The handouts are summaries, and codes change.

I am Kelsey Earl, a Realtor with Keller Williams South Valley, and if animals are part of the plan, tell me early so we only tour houses where the zone, the lot and the CC&Rs all line up.

Note: This summarizes Herriman City’s published handouts on City Code 10-29-7 as checked in October 2026 and is not legal advice. Zoning, code and HOA rules change, and Herriman City and your HOA are the final word on any specific property.