Can I keep chickens, goats or livestock?

**No.** Both the covenants and the Township prohibit it, from different directions.

**The covenants.** No animals, livestock or poultry of any kind may be raised, bred or kept on any lot. The only exception is household pets — dogs, cats and similar — provided they are not kept, bred or maintained for any commercial purpose.

So chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, horses and similar animals are outside what a lot here may carry.

**Freeman Township.** Its zoning ordinance requires a minimum of one acre for the first animal and half an acre for each additional one — and then says plainly: **no farm animals may be kept in a platted subdivision.** All nine Lake of the Pines subdivisions are platted, so that settles it regardless of lot size.

The ordinance names cattle, horses, other equines and similar livestock.

**Backyard chickens are a common question.** They are poultry, and poultry is named in the covenant prohibition.

**What is permitted.** Household pets. See the articles on how many pets you may have and on breeding or boarding.

**Beehives and similar** are not addressed by the covenants. If you are considering something the documents do not clearly cover, ask the office and the Township Zoning Administrator before you invest in it.

*Source: Restrictive Covenants, Article VII, Section 2; Freeman Township Zoning Ordinance No. 8, Section 4.23.*