Help Find These Escaped Chickens! Reward: Booze!

It's not every day when you see a LOST CHICKEN poster taped to a Laguna Beach telephone pole.

And it's even less likely to see a bottle of red wine offered as the reward for finding said lost chicken. A 2004 Opolo Mountain Zinfandel, to be exact (no coq au vin jokes, please).

But this missing bird—a white sultan chicken with feathers on its legs—is very real, as is the reward. Laguna Beach Patch contributor Kathy Ochiai was in the area Saturday when she came across the poster (click on it for a larger image).

Of course, the crack Laguna Beach Patch Investigative News Team had to get to the bottom of this, so we called the listed number and spoke with Laura Murphy—who told us she's now looking for two AWOL chickens. A black one with a red beak also escaped Saturday.

"We're chicken-sitting for two families who are in Europe," explains Murphy. "These aren't just ordinary chickens; they're $70 egg-laying chickens, and we were taking care of the eggs, but they somehow got out. I don't want to think that coyotes got them, but I called the police and the animal shelter and they assured me that they have picked up lost chickens before. There are a lot more families with chickens in Laguna Beach than I realized."

The owners return from Europe this evening, so time is of the essence. If you see any chickens roaming the mean streets of Laguna Beach, give Murphy a call ASAP at 949-376-1692.

"My husband thinks they’re riding the trolley," jokes Murphy.