Madison to hear public comments on backyard chicken and rodent rules

Madison’s Board of Health will hear public comments Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Hartley Dodge Memorial Building on chicken and rodent control ordinances, putting backyard hens in the same room as concerns about pests and neighborhood health. The hearing comes as the borough weighs whether poultry should be handled as a manageable household practice or as something that needs tighter public-health controls.

The board’s agenda sits on top of an ordinance process already moving through borough government. A Madison Borough legal notice dated April 30 says Ordinance 23-2026 was introduced by title and passed on first reading at a regular Mayor and Council meeting on April 29, and a separate notice describes an ordinance “to permit the managed care of chickens.” That wording matters because it points to regulation, not a free-for-all. The borough is not starting from scratch, and it is not talking only about zoning. It is already drafting rules around how chickens are kept.

Madison Borough also has an application to keep poultry for noncommercial purposes. The form lists a $25 annual fee, says no permit to keep poultry is transferable, and gives the Madison Board of Health or the Health Department authority to suspend or revoke permits. Applications can be submitted by mail or dropped off at the Health Department. Borough health pages say Madison is represented for Health Department services by the Westfield Health Department, which reinforces that poultry questions are being handled through a health lens as much as a land-use one.

For backyard keepers, the details under discussion could reach into daily flock management, from how many birds a homeowner may keep to whether roosters are barred and how clean the coop site has to stay. Rodent-control rules can also tighten expectations around feed storage, manure disposal and odor, all of which affect whether hens fit comfortably into a neighborhood. Princeton already offers one nearby model: its poultry ordinance sets maximum chicken numbers by lot size, from 2 chickens on 5,000-square-foot lots to 8 chickens on 60,000-square-foot lots.

That leaves Madison at a familiar fork in the road for suburban chicken keeping. The Monday hearing will show whether the borough writes rules that treat hens like a regulated nuisance to contain or like a household practice that can be managed under clear permit terms.