—by Raymond Brimble

I spent some time hanging around the chicken coop at my hotel in California last weekend. That’s right: a fancy hotel had a chicken coop. Only in California, they call it a Chicken Co-op. As you might imagine, it’s a lot nicer than most of the coops I have seen in Texas. Around here, coops are messy affairs, and the birds that inhabit them, frankly, don’t give a damn. Texas chickens spend their days just clucking around, mostly sleeping, eating copious amounts of those abundant Texas insects, and then enthusiastically passing those insect remains wherever we humans might want to step. 

But in California, these Chicken Co-ops are clean, organized affairs. The chickens are a large, exotically colorful breed, regally perching in their individual chambers. They stare at me in a slightly judgmental way, as if to say, “Keep moving, Bucko, nothing to see here.” The Co-op has attendants who look after the birds and clean up after them. No eating of bugs here. Rather their diet consists of fine, stone- ground organic hops and grains, mixed with the proper amount of cannabis seeds—all blessed by the local shaman, of course. These appear to be truly happy, well-nourished, and exquisitely groomed chickens.

It’s just not like that back in Texas. We, and our chickens, tend to be slightly disheveled, and irritable, too. Texas chickens are always squawking about something, chasing each other around and then crowing about it from dawn to dusk. Not the California chickens at the Co-op. They are strangely quiet and mellow. No squawks. The sound emitting from the Co-op is a slightly melodic gurgling. Could it be their diet, surroundings, or perhaps the fact that it’s 72 degrees with low humidity year round? Or perhaps it’s just the seeds...

This all goes to show the obvious. Texas and California ARE different, and they have the chickens to prove it. I enjoyed my time around the Co-op last weekend, but to tell you the truth, I was ready to get back to my own coop in Austin and hear again what all the squawking was about.