Last week, a strange chicken mystery unfolded in Berkeley. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Urban Farm Oasis co-owner Kate Hobbs found the farm's coop at Ashby Avenue and Sacramento Street broken open, Berkeleyside reports. The padlock was smashed and the door ripped off. Eight hens, about 40 young pullets and the flock's rooster, Olgard, were all gone. Raccoons and coyotes were ruled out right away.
Mystery birds at the middle school
About two miles north, lead garden educator Dee Thompson arrived at the Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and found unfamiliar chickens wandering outside the school's locked coop. "I looked to my right and there's a chicken. I looked to my left, there are two more chickens," she told Berkeleyside. Students found dead birds, mostly young ones. Callers reported a chicken crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Way and a rooster on the school track. Thompson thinks the birds were dumped overnight in the fenced run and that the smaller ones squeezed out.
The count
Six of the farm's eight hens survived, along with Olgard. Only four of the roughly 40 pullets were found alive. Ten were dead, and as of Tuesday two hens, Onyx and Buffy, and 26 pullets were still missing. Berkeleyside says the farm raised the flock to sell as backyard egg layers and for education. The dead pullets were buried at the schoolyard.
About the Edible Schoolyard
The garden-and-kitchen program at King has taught Berkeley sixth, seventh and eighth graders since 1995. It's the Edible Schoolyard Project's demonstration site, and the project says every student takes 60 classes in the program over three years.