I belong to several online chicken groups and have seen a number of posts involving hens that have laid eggs in cars, snuck rides to town, got stuck in grills or found themselves in the back of a pick up or delivery truck.
(Photo credits: Gracie Smith, unknown, Ed Stone)
I came across the following post from Lee Chappell in an online group and got a laugh about all the unexpected things chicken keepers contend with. When it comes to birds, if something could go wrong it often does.
“A day in the life of me. This afternoon, we had to run into town to do some errands. I loaded the family into the car and began to back out of the driveway. Because we have a selection of random critters, I always back out very slowly to give anything a chance to move out of the way. We pulled out of the driveway without incident and went on down the road. I noticed the fuel light was on; not a big surprise since my wife Krystal likes her car to run on hopes and dreams, so we pulled into the nearest gas station.
She walked inside to buy a drink and I began pumping gas. During this time I started to notice the smell of burnt hair and flesh. At first I passed it off, but it was getting much stronger so I looked around to see what it could be. I happened to notice smoke coming from under the car which alarmed me because there clearly was something burning. That’s when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
I turned around and noticed a smoking chicken waddling away from the car. I recognized this hen as one of our own and stood there in bewilderment. Several people walked out of the store looking at our smoldering chicken in confusion. Finally my wife came out. I pointed to our crispy chicken and hollered to grab her. She set down her shopping and chased after our chicken.
At this point, a couple of store employees came out to watch this spectacle. She caught the chicken pretty quick and the four of us started speculating on how she came to be in such a precarious way. We have a fenced in paddock for the chickens but occasionally they’ll find a way over and then our hound thinks they’re walking tennis balls and chases them. I’m assuming she got out and got chased under the car; either that or went under there to take a nap.
We looked the charred chicken over and noticed that only her feathers were burned and, for the most part, she was unscathed. We gave her some water and got her into the car and headed back home to put her into the coop. After returning her we went back into town and completed our errands. Only now, my wife smelled like a burnt chicken and we couldn’t seem to get rid of the odour.”
Thanks to Lee Chappell for sharing his story, used with permission.
Featured photo credit: Cheryl Flanagan
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Bitchin' Chickens 
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