Silicon Valley elite’s latest status symbol: chickens
Savvy technicians ‘reverse engineer’ their broods
JOHAN Land has a life that stands out even among Silicon Valley’s tech elite: he’s the lead product manager at Waymo (formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project), a job that keeps him glued to computer screens and fixated on the future.
Excelling at his work, Land said, requires an obsessive focus. But maintaining that passion – especially with his fourth child on the way – means knowing when to detach. Land’s secret to success: relaxing with a glass of wine in the back yard alongside his wife, kids and the family’s 13 chickens and three sheep.
It’s mindless, he said, but far from banal. “It’s a fascinating thing to sit and watch the animals because instead of looking at a screen, you’re looking at the life cycle. It’s very different from the abstract work that I do.”
In America’s rural and working-class areas, keeping chickens has long been a thrifty way to provide fresh eggs. In recent years, the practice has emerged as an unlikely badge of urban modishness. But in the Bay Area – where the nation’s pre-eminent food movement overlaps with the tech elite – egg-laying chickens are now a trendy, eco-conscious humble brag on a par with driving a Tesla.
In true Silicon Valley fashion, chicken owners approach their birds as any savvy venture capitalist might: by throwing lots of money at a promising flock, by charting their productivity (number and colour of eggs), and by finding new ways to optimise their birds’ happiness – and their own.
Like any successful start-up, broods aren’t built so much as reverse engineered. Decisions about breed selection are resolved by using engineering matrices and spreadsheets.
“At Amazon, whenever we build anything, we write the press release first and decide what we want the end to be. I bring the same mentality to the backyard chickens,” said Ken Price, the director of Amazon Go, who spent a decade in San Francisco before moving to Seattle. Price has had six chickens over the past eight years and is “succession planning” for his next “refresh”.
“We’re moving toward a more sustainable cost structure,” he noted – zeroing in on the chickens that produce the most eggs with the least feed.
While the rest of the nation spends $15 (R178) on an ordinary chicken at their local feed store, Silicon Valley residents might spend more than $350 for one heritage breed, a designation for rare, non-industrial birds with genetic lines that can be traced back generations. They are selecting for desirable personality traits (such as being affectionate and calm – the lap chickens that are gentle enough for a child to cuddle), rarity, beauty and the ability to produce highly coveted, coloured eggs.
All of it happens in cutting-edge coops, with exorbitant vet bills and a steady diet of organic salmon, watermelon and steak.
New owners might start off with a standard breed like a Leghorn, a Barred Rock or Rhode Island Red
IT’S NOT UNCOMMON TO SEE CHICKENS ROAMING IN THEIR OWNERS’ HOMES OR ROOSTING IN BEDROOMS, OFTEN WITH DIAPERS ON
before upgrading to something more exotic and ornamental like a Silkie, a Jersey Giant, golden laced bearded Polish chicken or a Dorking, an endangered British breed with a sweet disposition and roots that stretch back to the Roman empire.
Also popular are Easter Eggers, a type of chicken with a gene that allows it to produce pale blue eggs.
A typical flock is around four or five birds, but those who “go crazy” end up with 15 or 20. In pampered Silicon Valley conditions, birds can live more than a decade. Instead of cobbling together a plywood coop with materials from the local hardware store, the rare birds of Silicon Valley are hiring contractors to build $20 000 coops using reclaimed materials or pricey redwood that matches their human homes. Others opt for a Williams-Sonoma coop – chemical free and made from sustainable red pine – that has been called the “Range Rover of chicken cribs”. Coops are also outfitted with solar panels, automated doors and electrical lighting – as well as video cameras that allow owners to check on their beloved birds remotely.
Bill Michel, a chicken owner in Redwood City, enjoys sharing videos of his cluckers inside their coop with anyone who will watch.
“Best time is ‘bedtime’,” Michel said. “They jostle for position before settling down.” Riveting. Michel uses “Coop Tender”, a system that allows owners to control their coops via smartphone, dictating temperature, ventilation and lighting. The system includes an automatic door and “predator motion detection” that turns on a security light and sends owners a text when danger lurks. Despite their privilege, even these chickens are circled by predators like hawks, coyotes and bobcats.
One owner plans to transform his coop into an Airbnb for humans once the feathered inhabitants die. Scott Vanderlip’s annual Silicon Valley tour – Tour de Coop – has drawn as many as 2 500 participants some years.
It’s not uncommon to see chickens roaming in their owners’ homes or even roosting in bedrooms, often with diapers on, said Leslie Citroen, 54, one of the Bay Area’s most sought after “chicken whisperers”, who does everything from selling upscale chickens and building coops to providing consultation to backyard bird owners.
Her services cost $225 an hour. Want a coop and walk-in pen? Expect to pay $4 000 to $5 000 for a standard set-up. Her clients spend “thousands” for surgeries and X-rays to keep them alive after attacks and illnesses.
Citroen’s clients are usually men in their 30s and 40s, with young families. After spending their days in front of computers, they long for a connection to nature. What they want most of all, she said, is a “rainbow assortment” of beautiful, coloured eggs in various shades of blue, olive green and speckled brown. Why? “Because it shouts out ‘These eggs did not come from Whole Foods or Walmart – these eggs came from my back yard’,” Citroen said. “It’s a total status symbol.”