Malibu—swimming pools, the beach, movie stars… chickens. The urban backyard chicken craze that’s been sweeping the country for the past decade has come home to roost, and shows no signs of slowing down.
Helene Schubert, an employee at the Malibu Feed Bin at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, said there’s been a “huge increase” in the number of people keeping chickens “from Venice to Point Mugu” during her eight years at the store. “I think it has to do with people wanting to raise their own food for a healthier lifestyle and learning it’s not that hard to raise chickens,” she said.
Co-worker Joyce Levy agreed. “In the two years I’ve worked here, I’ve definitely seen an increase just in that time. People are into the organic and getting back to the free-range and local.”
For many, an interest in homegrown eggs is the next step after personal gardens.
Malibu resident MiChela Anderson has been a self-described “poultry person” for 30 years. “Chicken-keeping was an outgrowth of my interest in gardening. We use the manure in the garden. It appeals to people who want to be sustainable and organic,” she said. “When everyone was going crazy over salmonella we didn’t have to worry about it. I’m always surprised that more people don’t have chickens in Malibu.”
Dare 2 Dream Farms in the Lompoc area has been delivering chickens, chicken coops and supplies, including complete starter packages, to Malibu customers for more than three years. Co-founder and co-owner Megan Raff said the farm has about three-dozen customers in Malibu. “There’s a huge movement of people wanting to get closer to their food sources,” she said.
Anderson said that taking care of chickens is, “Amazingly easy. They’re one of the lowest maintenance animals/pets, and the big payoff is, unlike my dog, they actually produce something I can eat!”
Anderson said each hen lays an average of about one egg per day, although it varies depending on the bird.
“Each hen’s eggs are distinctly different,” Anderson said. “They’re seasonal layers and don’t usually lay from October to March.”
The eggs look different from the store-bought variety when they hit the frying pan. “The yolks are more saturated in color, depending on what you feed the chickens,” Anderson said. “The boundaries between the white and the yolk are more distinct and the yolk sits more prominently on top of the white in the frying pan.”
Predators can be a problem in Malibu. “We’ve had four break-ins in 30 years, usually coyotes,” Anderson said, “but then we electrified the coop.” The family dogs and cats haven’t been a problem, either. “Chickens are intimidating to cats,” she said.
Anderson, like many backyard chicken enthusiasts, goes to the backyardchickens.com website for information, advice from other owners and message boards. In addition, “You can find chickens for free and feed-store locations,” she said.
Raff ’s advice to first-time chicken buyers is to “start with chickens at a young enough age to where they can still bond with humans – usually about two months old. It makes it more enjoyable.”
When asked if people ever try to return their chickens to the store, the Malibu Feed Bin has a “strict policy of not taking back chickens because of disease,” Schubert said. “The most common reason people try to return them is that they’ve stopped laying eggs. A hen will lay eggs from six months to three or four years old, but may live as long as 12-14 years.”
Dare 2 Dream said that one of the most common mistakes new chicken owners make is buying a cheap ready-made chicken coop. “It’s hard to find an inexpensive coop that provides a humane amount of space for the chickens and predator protection,” Raff said. “Take a store-bought coop and reinforce it or else build one yourself.” She recommends that each chicken have 10 square feet of space outside and four square feet inside the coop.
Chicken owners make other common mistakes. “Chickens and bunnies cannot live together, because the chickens carry coccidia and rabbits are very susceptible to it,” Schubert said. Plus, “You can’t take off for the weekend and leave two gallons of water. Chickens drink quite a lot.” In addition, the birds can escape through holes in the coop.
Malibu’s municipal code requires chicken owners to live on a minimum one-acre parcel zoned rural residential. Lisa Tent, senior code enforcement officer, said that chickens “must be located at least 50 feet from any habitable structure.” She confirmed that most chicken-related complaints are about roosters crowing, but that roosters are “not prohibited” by the city’s current code.
