Hit and Run Chicken

A few evenings ago, my husband was sitting in the living room and all of a sudden called the rest of us over and said we needed to look outside. Looking out the window, we saw a small brown chicken talking with our girls. She doesn't belong to us and I have no idea where she came from. I know there are other people around my neighborhood who have chickens, I hear roosters crowing on nearby streets if I am out walking in the morning. None of our bordering neighbors have chickens though. Our walls are all 6ft or higher and you can't see through them (no chain link, just wood slats or blocks). This little hen must have heard my girls cackling and decided to pay them a visit. I'm glad the dogs weren't out when she came calling.



She walked right into our run and up the ramp to the coop. She didn't eat any of the pellets we had out, but she did take a short dust bath. She seemed to really like being up on the roosting bar in the run. Boy was she a talker! I don't think she ever closed her beak for more than a few seconds at a time. My husband picked her up and she was extremely nice. Definitely belonged to someone at some point. Frankly, she was nicer than a few of my girls. I was hoping she would want to stick around. I thought maybe she would follow my girls into the coop for the night, but she chose the neighbor's lemon tree instead.



The next morning, she was still in the lemon tree, singing her little heart out. She made sure everyone was up and around, then she took off. We haven't seen her since. I hope she finds a nice place to stay and maybe a rooster to keep her company.




*I know that in the interests of bio-security, we don't want strange chickens mixing with ours unless they have been quarantined but by the time we saw she was there, she had already been interacting with our hens. Hopefully she was just as healthy as my girls and we won't be cursing her in the coming weeks.