What Do They Consider Minis?

I live in Delaware and I was wondering if the law considers miniature horses as livestock/farm animals or pets? Also how much room is required? I've heard some people say law counts them as one horse and other people say they count them as 1/2 a horse!?

I'm not even in the same country as you so my thoughts in the matter may not be relevant, BUT...

I was almost given a Mini colt for my 9th birthday [he would have been gelded ASAP had we been able to keep him]. It was intended that he would live in our HUGE backyard in a residential area, because it was just the perfect sized yard for a Mini and there was no way in heck he was escaping from THAT fencing [6 foot high, totally solid, not even the most talented escape artist had a hope of getting out of it!]. Neighbours were all cool with it and for the brief period we had him there, they all thought it was the best thing EVER to have a pony on the street. The problem was local law.

A horse, regardless of size, is a hoofed animal, and therefore considered livestock. Because of local law, and the zoning of the property [residential], it was illegal to keep livestock on the property concerned full stop.

Rural, special rural, or rural residential would all have been absolutely fine zonings to keep a Mini on [block size does make a big difference here, of course; some rural residential blocks aren't big enough], but not straight out residential.

It very much depends on your property, its zoning, and the laws in your area. One city council/shire council will have different laws from the next here in Aus, and I have definitely heard of counties in America having different laws from the next county over.

You will need to consult your local zoning office with regards to the livestock to acre restrictions.

You are definitely going to have to research your area. I live in a little town of 800 people and we are not allowed any "farm" animals here but in our states biggest city you can have even a horse if it is on the only one within so many blocks and no one complains.

Here is the ordinance from the 1950's "The current ordinance says you can keep animals as long as they're not objectionable to your neighbors or for commercial purposes."

Wow. My neighbor told me that the deed to his property does not allow farm animals, but ours says nothing about that. (Our property has also been there for 50 years longer than my neighbor's) Also the building inspector said that as long as we tell the people we're getting the permit from that it's an agriculture building, that we shouldn't have any problems.
I don't know. I'll do a little searching around as soon as possible. Thanks for the feedback!

Yes ArabLover, that's the other thing - some properties have caveats put on them. My mother looked at a very cheap piece of land in the next town, which the seller only wanted $150,000 for [here, that's INSANELY cheap; most hobby-farm sized properties, even undeveloped, are upwards of half a million], but further investigation yielded a government caveat that the land was not to be developed, or even heavily grazed, for conservation purposes, as there were rare plants growing on it.

The property across the road from it was absolutely fine, but over twice the price and needed a LOT more work on the fences etc. The property next door to it had the same caveat but on a much smaller portion, and was $50,000 more.

Needless to say we didn't end up buying.