It started yesterday morning while I was browsing my emails at the breakfast table. A friend forwarded me a facebook post from a lost and found pets group, and asked me if I knew someone who could help with a stray chicken. Hmm... who could it be?
The chicken has been spotted in a park, near a pond, and didn't seem to be afraid of people nor their dogs walking by. Chickens are prey animals and dumping them in the wild or a park is usually a death sentence, but somehow she managed to survive her first night. A concerned neighbor posted about her on a local facebook group, and got several people starting to look out for her. One brought her some corn that she thoroughly enjoyed.
Since she wasn't too weary of humans, catching her seemed relatively possible. I contacted the local group of neighbors and told them that if they could catch the chicken I could take the hen home. At the same time I started contacting friends close to the area where she was, as well as a facebook group of people who care a lot about chickens. Everyone responded amazingly fast, and several people coordinated with local folks to go catch her in the park.
By mid' morning, a local neighbor got her, and immediately secured her in their backyard. The chicken had extra luck! Her rescuers had experience with chickens and did all the right things: put her in a safe and secluded coop, gave her some food but not too much because they recognized that she was a cornish cross (the breed of chicken bred for meat), checked for external parasites, and gave her a nice bath. They could keep her for the night and I would pick her up the next day.
While I was getting my guest coop ready to foster this new girl until we found her a new home, one of my friends told me that she had a spot in her coop. She already had cornish cross hens so knew the challenge of keeping them in good health. So the next day, we picked her up from her rescuer's home and brought her directly to her new forever home.
It took a village to rescue that chicken from the local neighbors who cared enough to post about her, my friend who forwarded me the post, the chickens group on facebook who activated their network, all the people who went looking for her, the person who actually caught her and cared for her, my husband who drove a couple of hours to transport her, and of course my other friend who opened her home to that lucky girl. Thank you all so very much.
