Stowaway chicken gets adopted after journey across Vancouver Island

After a 150-kilometre drive from Campbell River to Nanaimo, the workers aboard a recycling truck were shocked to find a surprise stowaway had hitched a ride with them.

Upon arrival at the recycling depot, a chicken emerged from the undercarriage of the truck, unscathed and unfazed.

“All of a sudden the chicken was just like, ’Oh, I’ll get off here’ and started, you know, scratching around like a chicken does,” Mike Sherman, an officer at Nanaimo Animal Control, told CTV News Wednesday. “Like not even rattled by you know, the long highway trip in the undercarriage of the truck.”

The whole situation was “unusual to say the least,” he added.

The truckers called Nanaimo Animal Control, and the hitchhiking hen was brought into their care.

A staff member named the bird Henrietta, an homage to his childhood chicken. And Henrietta rose to celebrity status while at the pound.

“The chicken was very friendly and used to being handled,” Sherman said. “Super domesticated, very sociable with you, not flighty or scared or anything.”

The animal control officer suspects Henrietta was someone’s pet. Unfortunately, efforts to track down her owner were unsuccessful.

But Henrietta’s adventure has a happy ending. Under animal bylaws, the pound puts unclaimed pets up for adoption if their owner isn’t found in an allotted time.

It didn’t take long at all for the bird to find a new family. “The circumstances of Henrietta coming into our care was definitely out of the norm,” Sherman said. “So it was easy to gather interest and she quickly got adopted out to a new loving home.”

Dayna Litowski brought Henrietta to her forever home in South Wellington outside Nanaimo on Saturday. She told CTV News in a text message that the hen will live her best chicken life on a large property with a flock of fellow feathered friends.

Henrietta with some of her new friends. (Image credit: Dayna Litowski) Litowski said Henrietta is settling in well and is getting a long with her new coop-mates. The hen is “super friendly” and likes being carried around and pet, she added.

“We have the room, so we may as well add a celebrity to our flock,” she wrote. “We love chickens, and even though they give us eggs, they are all our pets as well.”