Unexpected guest...

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Cab

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We have a spare hen house and run in a friends garden. Its used when we're on holiday (our girls go over there). Today it has another inhabitant...

Was contacted via. twitter by a mutual friend of someone who lives down off Hills Road, one of the main roads through the middle of Cambridge. She and her husband had found a hen wandering in the street, and failed to find the owner. They chased her in to the back garden.

So this afternoon I cycled down with the bike trailer and a cat carrier, finally captured an un-cooperative red hen. Might be ex battery, but she's in okay nick. She's asleep in the spare house I described, and fingers crossed the folk who found her (as luck would have it the county councillor who knows a lot of folk down there) will track down her people!

If they don't find her owners, not entirely sure what I'll do with her though...

Odd thing is, this is the second time I've gained a refugee chicken via twitter.
 
Poor little girl Cab. She will be rather lonely on her own perhaps, so lets hope her owners are found quickly.
 
Contacted allotment site near to there asked them to put word round.

And yes, she's making 'where is everyone' noises and she's clearly not as happy as she should be, but she's healthy enough and at least safe. I've sent messages to local radio stations to see if they'll put word out too, and the police and RSPCA (but they've had no reports, as you'd expect.

Fingers crossed.
 
Bad news is I haven't found the owners yet, but we'll give it a week or two.

Good news is that I've got a couple of folk who I know keep their hens to a high standard who are happy to take her. One has a couple of hens in a smaller garden, might be a tough task integrating her, while the other has a whole load of mostly ex battery hens in a field.

Don't have to decide yet of course - and I rather hope that we'll find her owners (request locally retweeted widely and posters up on the street she was found in, as well as talking to local allotment folk!). But if it comes down to re-homing, which would you go for?
 
The "couple of folk who keep their hens to a high standard" Cab. The hen escaped for a reason. If the owners were up to anything they would be looking for her as hard as you are looking for them. So I would forget the original owners and if ever questioned not reveal the identity of the new ones.
 
For me, the decision would depend on how much run space the garden had to offer. As you say, Cab, integrating a lone hen is always tricky, but if the existing pair were kept in a small run (less than the 6-8+ sq metres that 3 birds would need) it would go hard on her I think, she would be bullied with no chance to escape. If they had room to divide a larger run so the two old hens could see her but not peck for a week or two, it could be done. In a bigger group in a field, she would probably be able to go to ground and find her own slot more easily. At least, whichever you choose, you'll have done the quarantine bit for the new owner.
 
Sorry Cab, mis-read your post. Sounds like the big group will give her more space. The established pair in a small run would be rather cruel on her as a sudden introduction and there may not be a segregated run available or, as Marigold says, enough run space anyway. She would always be on her own as an outsider anyway. In the large group she may 'buddy up' with another hen.

So my vote goes to the "whole load of hens in a field".
 
Surprised today to see a certain amount of whole, undigested grain in her droppings. Not something I've seen before, I presume she must be short of grit - there's some in her run so presumably she'll sort that out for herself if that is the problem.

I'm moving towards the bigger group of hens for re-homing if it comes to that. With the other pair integration could be done by dividing up their garden (I know they've done so before to re-integrate a hen after she'd been segregated because of a wound that needed to heal up - that hen also received intensive care in my spare run!), but I think a single hen added to an established pair is going to be hard, and I know they're looking to get another couple of hens in the next few months anyway which rather makes that too complicated for my liking. The other guy who has more hens than that is also the bloke I got my christmas turkey from, he knows what he's about, and having the chance for her to make friends with one or two hens first might be the best thing.

But we might yet find her owners :)
 
Still got her. She's well enough but still lonely.

Haven't had any word from owners but some promises to take her from others.

RSPCA, police and CAB all really vague on how long one has to keep such a creature before re-homing - which is crazy so I intend to say b0jjock$ to the law and get her to a new owner this weekend. In my opinion in the absence of clear legal guidance and without the owner reporting to the RSPCA or the police I've got to do whats best for the hen!

Here she is if you want to see:

http://cambridge.shapeyourplace.org/found-brown-chicken/#.Ut5vFRDFLDc
 
I think that her owners maybe think that she was taken by fox and this is a reason you can't trace them.They not looking for her.It would be my first guess if one of mine were missing.I think you have done a lot and is time to give her a new home :D
 
Amazingly enough the owner has come forward!

Not 100% impressed with her reaction to hen being missing - and the explanations were just peculiar. So I'll be cycling down with a cat carrier in the bike trailer tomorrow morning, and I'll have a good nosey as I hand her over. Sounds like she's lost hens to wandering-off before :(
 
I'll keep you all informed :)

I entirely get what you're saying Chris - I really want to see how many other hens she has and find out whats going on.
 
There's a woman just up the road from us, who keeps a few exbatts, nominally confined within a circle of sagging Omlet non-electrified chicken netting. Whenever they feel like going walkies they just hop over the lowest point, or push their way underneath it and wander the neighborhood, including out in our road which is sometimes busy with fast traffic or heavy farm machinery. Her hens often get into my neighbours garden, which annoys him because its a neat and tidy sort of place, and many times I've had to help him catch an offender who has demolished a flower bed. I chase them back under her hedge when I go past but everybody locally has got fed up with doing this every time they wander. Luckily the local gamekeepers seem to be well up to the job, else the hens would have gone down to foxes long since.
Trouble is, I'm not sure how well they're looked after on other ways, eg feeding, water, cleaning, worming etc. They look OK at a glance but it would be hard to tell without a good examination. Maybe they need to roam to find enough food. It would be a bit worrying to return a bird to a setup such as this, Cab. Let's hope she now knows the way back to your place, then next time you get to quietly keep her!
 
Google is giving me about 5 miles from her house to mine - so hen ain't wandering back to us on its own, I was called in to get her first time :)

I won't quietly wander off if I think the hens are hard done to - I know that there are three poultry keepers on the allotments behind her house (I phoned allotment association folk because that was a likely spot for her to be on the run from!) and I'll go have a hen/allotment keeper heart to heart with those folk to keep an eye out if I think thats necessary.
 
Dropped her off about half eight this morning.

I suggested to the lady on the phone that she could pick the hen up or I could put a cat carrier in my bike trailer and ride the 5 miles to her house and back, and her response was 'could you, that would be very nice'... So I gritted my teeth and headed off. I thought that maybe, like me, she's reliant on pedal power to get around, and I could cut her some slack - not her fault that upon rescue the hen was of necessity taken so far away.

The car on her drive showed me that no, she could have most readily have come to collect her hen :(

The other hens (five or six I saw) were happy enough looking critters - all roughly the same age, a couple of what looked like the one I'd brought back (black tail or something like - even black tail goldline cross if I had to guess). The garden they're in was good - I didn't like the way she handled the hen, I really don't like seeing a hen being picked up by bent back wings. And I thought reintroducing her without asking any questions about her health, her condition, or even inspecting her was irresponsible.

But the garden itself was a good habitat for the hens - the hens seemed healthy and happy. The problem is that her fences are just too patchy and low. Ain't rocket science to see how these two got out (of which I recovered this one), and her theory that she had a previous two nicked (including a cock) seems way less likely than they wandered off!

There's an allotment site behind her garden, I know that there are three poultry keepers there, I'll get in touch with them - they'll not want a stray hen from an unknown garden getting in with their flocks, so I'll ask them to peek over her fence and keep an eye on things. I'll also mention this with the lady who cornered the hen in her garden - she's a local councillor who perhaps might suggest better fences too!

Whats really annoyed me is that this lady seems to have taken no serious pains in finding her hens.

Cheers,

Cab.
 
I have formed an opinion of the character of this 'lady' Cab, but it is unprintable! Just hope the hen is OK. If they can get out a fox can get in.
 
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