Fresno County one step closer to capping number of roosters after ‘unlivable’ complaints

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – An ordinance to cap the number of roosters Fresno County residents can own is one step away from becoming law.

On Tuesday, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors introduced a “Keeping of Roosters” ordinance that would limit county residents to five roosters per property. This stems from years of noise complaints and reports of chicken fighting.

Most people who live out in the country know that a rooster’s crow comes with the territory. But if your neighbors own hundreds of roosters, your morning wake-up call could be brutal. “They’re shouting at each other all day, crowing at the top of their lungs,” says Fresno County resident Paul Rosenfeld.

Rosenfeld says he’s been putting up with the chaos created by his neighbor’s rooster for the past six years. “They make your house unlivable because of the noise. You can’t sleep, and you can’t sleep with your windows open. You can’t hear the creek road or the birds singing. All you can hear are these roosters. Your property value goes away overnight,” he explained. 

He’s not the only one with complaints. Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig co-authored the ordinance alongside Buddy Mendes. Magsig says the board and the sheriff’s office receive frequent noise complaints and concerns about rooster fighting. But the issue is that law enforcement has to see the fighting order to issue a citation. “Some locations had hundreds of roosters, and just the noise is intense, and it appeared that there was no farming purpose for that,” Magsig shared. 

Currently, in some parts of the county, owners can have 500 “birds,” so some property owners have 500 roosters. The proposed ordinance caps the limit at only five roosters. “Well, now you can have 500 hens, that’s not a problem. You can have five roosters plus 495 hens,” Magsig said.

But there are exemptions. The ordinance allows educational organizations like 4-H or Future Farmers of America to exceed the limit. You could also pay a one-time $440 application fee and a yearly permit costing $240 to keep 11 to 24 roosters. “The reason those charges are there is because we have to have staff go out to the site, maintain a file on each location that may have more than five roosters. So that fee is not something that comes back to the county as like discretionary revenue for us,” Magsig concluded. 

The ordinance will be brought back for a second reading on Oct. 7. If passed, the law will go into effect 30 days after that.