The Gloucester Planning Commission supported a code amendment to allow keeping chickens in the single-family detached residential (SF-1) zoning district Thursday night. The matter now heads on to the county supervisors.

Chickens were already allowed under the “keeping livestock” regulations in other residential districts in the county, planner Tripp Little said, including the C-2, SC-2, R-1 and R-2 zoning districts.

As proposed, chickens are the only livestock that will be allowed in the SF-1 district, Little said.

The proposed ordinance prohibits the keeping of roosters, and limits the number of female chickens that may be kept on lots smaller than two acres in the SF-1 district. Little said that means homeowners in SF-1 cannot keep guinea hens, turkeys or peacocks.

During a public hearing in a frigid old courthouse—the heat wasn’t working on a brutally cold night—only two people spoke about the chicken-keeping matter. Julia Yarborough asked the commi...