THUNDER BAY — A chicken that flew the coop and hitched a ride all the way from near Hymers to County Fair Mall is safely back home after wandering around the city for days.
This chicken had to cross not just one road but multiple roads during her adventure last week and is lucky to have survived.
Nicknamed "Old Girl" by Saul Levanen's 8-year-old son, the bird had been known to jump the fence and run around in the yard at the family's residence in O'Connor Township.
On Dec. 23, though, no one noticed when she hopped into the back of a friend's pickup truck to feast on some deer feed.
The chicken rode all the way to the city with the driver being unaware she was in the back.
Early that evening, Levanen was scrolling through Facebook when he started seeing posts about a chicken on the loose in the drive-through at Tim Hortons.
In an interview Tuesday, he said he recognized the bird from a distinctive red zip-tie on its leg, and that he confirmed it was missing when he went out to check the coop.
He then reached out to a friend who lives close to County Fair, saying, "This is crazy. I think my chicken rode in the box of your truck."
Levanen believes the bird likely grazed on the deer feed all the way to town before jumping out at the mall when the man stopped to do some shopping.
He, his son and a friend immediately headed for the city to try to retrieve Old Girl but spent a fruitless couple of hours searching.
"We're like 'Well, OK, something or somebody grabbed it.' "
A week went by, and while Levanen happened to be in the city on Friday night, a relative told him he had seen a Snapchat message about a red and white chicken on John Street Road.
He headed to the location but, again, couldn't find the bird, and decided "She's gone again. I'm not going to find her."
Early Saturday morning, the same relative texted him about a new post from a man who said he had taken the chicken into care and was hoping to contact the owner.
"I was in shock. It was a full week. No way," Levanen wrote in a social media post.
He was able to get in touch with Thunder Bay resident Jim Robbins, and heard how he had spotted a woman taking video of a chicken last week.
Robbins, who raises quails, decided to find out what was going on.
"It looked like it was out of place, right? So we stopped, and I'm usually a helpful guy," he told TBnewswatch.
When the woman told him she didn't know who the chicken belonged to, he picked it up and took it home, expecting the owner would eventually come forward.
"It has a tag on its foot. Somebody knows whose it is, right? And we have a little Facebook group in our neighbourhood, so I figured people have backyard chickens, and it might be just somebody's got loose."
Robbins said his quails weren't too happy to have a chicken for company in their coop for a couple of days.
He said he has no idea how the chicken managed to make it from County Fair to John Street Road.
"That's a trip right there. It's about three kilometres maybe, and there's a lot of houses, a lot of streets, a lot of roads for the chicken to cross."
Levanen is grateful to Robbins and the other people who pitched in to try to get the chicken back home, writing in a social media post "I picked up my chicken from his house...most crazy thing I've ever heard of. She is back in the coop with her girls now, and my little guy Toivo is pumped."
A video of the happy reunion with the rest of the flock has been posted on Facebook.
