different animals

I asked this question on BE and did not get anything concrete so wondered if anyone here would know.
What are the rules and regulations on owning farm type animals (chickens and pygmy goats to be specific) in England? Are there HOA type things to contend with and what about city/town rules?
I realize it may vary from place to place, but does anyone know in general? And how would I go about finding out?

Also, this may be a silly question but once we move my two youngest children want to get pets of their own and I have said they could since here they will have to give up their current pets (a hamster and a fish). One wants a rabbit and one wants some sort of lizard like perhaps a chameleon. Are these animals allowed as pets in England? And how does one go about doing so?

People have rabbits - that is a fact. A quick google search shows people selling lizards and things so my guess is yes.
http://www.exotic-pets.co.uk/

As for town/city rules - People have a horse in a back terraced garden (I have seen it) so I don't think a rabbit would be a problem or a lizard in your house.

If you know where you are living call the council to check - I have never seen HOA here.

Good luck

It totally depends on where you live and whether your landlord will allow it and whether your neighbours decide to call the noise abatement people because of noisy chickens. 

There aren't HOA as far as I am aware, but I know in town there are some managed buildings that are sort of like that.

Thanks for the replies. I was more referring to it being allowed to having chickens and goats (since both are outside animals and both make noise).
The rabbits and particularly lizards I just was not sure if they could be obtained as pets. 

If the chickens and goats thing is important enough for us to pick a place over, how would we go about contacting the council in said place?

There aren't HOA as far as I am aware, but I know in town there are some managed buildings that are sort of like that.

There are sort of HOAs... we own our home, but still have some kind of a management company who does the outside landscaping and deals with parking issues. They would also probably have something to say if we wanted to paint our house pink or something, but they don't deal with pet ownership at all.