FAIR OAKS, Calif. — San Juan Capistrano has its swallows. Rome has its starlings. Fair Oaks has chickens.
Few places so prize and protect their feral fowl as this quiet outpost amid the bustling suburbia of eastern Sacramento County.
The town’s wild poultry — reputedly dating back three decades to the original free-range rooster and three hens — now number more than 200, according to one unofficial census.
Chickens have the run of Plaza Park, the grassy downtown square. They squawk, beg for scraps and roost on playground equipment or century-old storefronts. They jaywalk with abandon, halting rush-hour traffic. Cocks and pullets alike strut into nearby neighborhoods.
This being America, locals hold a festival each fall to celebrate the chicken. It’s one of the few times humans vastly outnumber the barnyard birds on the streets of Fair Oaks.
“We adore them,” said Sandy Lidstone, a longtime resident. “They’re an integral part of the village.”
One hen is remembered for nesting on the laps of customers lounging outside the Stockman bar. Another laid an egg in a planter box nearly every day. A loyal patron would retrieve it and crack it into his beer, bartender Judy Jackson said.
Jackson bubbled with civic pride over a short article in People magazine about the Fair Oaks flock: “Our chickens are known nationally.”
Not everybody feels such fondness. Some residents complain about predawn wake-up calls by roosters, droppings on storefront sidewalks and tales of mean birds pestering toddlers at the playground. To them, the pecking order is out of whack.
“Oh my God, they’ve everyplace,” said Steve Abbott, a retired high school teacher. “Some people think it’s cute, that the chickens add to the semi-rural appeal. I think it’s disgusting.”
Over the years, Abbott has lobbied Sacramento County health and animal control officials to stem the poultry proliferation, mostly to no avail.
At times, he took matters into his own hands, capturing a few marauding birds with a fishing net. He once threatened to go to court over a boisterous banty rooster harbored by a neighbor.
Ultimately, his patience spent, Abbott sold his home of 40 years and moved one town over. He cites Fair Oaks’ chicken proliferation as his No. 3 reason for the move (behind wanting a one-story house and fewer lawn-care responsibilities).
As folks tell it, the first birds arrived with Hugh Gorman, an artist who moved to Fair Oaks in 1977 with his four chickens.
At first, Gorman recalls, he fielded pleas to keep his flock cooped up. But ultimately, he relented to his free-spirit sensibilities and released the foursome.
Each year, a new flotilla of fuzzy yellow chicks could be seen scurrying after their mothers. Other chickens joined the mix, Gorman said, among them post-Easter escapees from a local feed store and barnyard rejects dumped at the town limits.
Now, the chickens are a functional part of the Fair Oaks ethos and ecosystem, Gorman said.
Even the community tragedy of the rare hen that falls victim to an errant motorist, he said, is a circle-of-life moment.
“They’re self-replacing speed bumps,” Gorman said. “You run them over and they grow new ones.”
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