Sometime last week, a workman who is installing my neighbor's new kitchen asked my companion (who was working in the yard) if he knew anything about chickens.

My companion who is from NYC and I don't think he's ever encountered an actual chicken in his life, but I have. So I went out to talk to the workman, and he told me there was a chicken on my neighbor's property and she wanted it gone. If I knew how to take care of it, I could have it.

Thinking of the eggs, I asked if it was a hen or a rooster. The guy said it was a rooster.

About that time, this poor, emaciated, feather bedraggled chicken comes walking out of my neighbors driveway.

It was pathetic. Looked like it had experienced encounters more than once with the several feral cats who roam out neighborhood from time to time.

Without going into too much detail on this, I started feeding the chicken whole kernal corn and some Fiber One. It actually came up on the porch, looked at me through the glass door and almost knocked on the door before I fed the thing. Now I have become very fond of this chicken and given him a name. He is known as Charlie Chicken.

Now comes the fun part. Turns out that when the neighbor first encountered the chicken on her property, seeing it in such a skinny, bedraggled condition, she called the "authorities" who handle animal problems, and two police offers in a cruiser came to her house and apparently offered such grandiose observations, as "Yep. That sure is a bedraggled chicken."

The held a private conference with each other and called yet another police cruiser with two police officers in it.

The four officers went into another huddle, and finally one of them told my neighbor there was nothing they could do. "Now," he said," if it was a dog or a cat or something like that, we could take it into the animal shelter, but chickens aren't on our list of duties." (paraphrased.)

This was over a week ago, and Charlie Chicken is still visiting my front steps and looking indignantly through the glass at me until I give him something to eat.

(I don't mind. Since my little dog died, I have been pet starved.)

I spent most of my working lives around courthouses and police. And I know how officers do not like to do petty stuff and have to fill our ridiculous paper work and jump through all sorts of hoops over some triviality.

I asked the neighbor: If the only respond for dogs and cats, what would the do if it were a rattlesnake, or a cougar, or a bear?????

I think the real reason is that the first two officers could just imagine the razzing they would have to take if they brought in, collared, a chicken. OMG. They would find eggs in their cars. Lots of "chicken" references, maybe Big Bird remarks. No way would they want to write out a three page report on the case of a captured chicken.

When they called a "back up" second car to deal with a wandering chicken, all they did was ensnare two more officers who would not want to deal with the fallout from arresting a chicken.

We have laughed until we cried imagining the scenario of those officers walking into their office with a freaking chicken. The officers I worked with would have rather been shot or crashed their cruisers than be involved in anyway in the "great chicken bust."

Hope you see the humor.

Charlie chicken is now being fed by me and our neighbor, and I have no doubt other neighbors. Wish he was a she and laid some eggs.

This is a chicken with attitude and style. Everytime I look at him he raises his head way up high and I could swear he looks like he should be wearing a little black bow tie around his neck.

Hope it made you laugh.

jd

LOVE this story, JD, and I love Charlie Chicken's attitude! ~ and, with a cop/detective as my significant other for so many years, your "take" on the universal mindset is 100% accurate ~

Sooz

Up until a few months ago our local Animal Control Officer was a sworn police officer and the animal control division was part of the police department including the "dog pound". for reasons you can imagine, it has become a civilian government entity recently.

I don't know too much about chickens however I spent a few days each summer as the guest of working farm and one our duties was to feed the chickens each morning.
We were instructed to feed them all of our garbage from fruits, vegetables. breads, meats and yes, eggs, including the shells.

Very funny story!! Thanks for sharing. With your creative imagination, it sounds like "Charlie Chicken" could be the makings for a great children's book, complete with a bow tie and even a vest. You could illustrate it too!!

"The Adventures of Charlie Chicken"

That's awesome! There are actually restrictions on "farm animals" here, we aren't technically allowed to keep fowl. But hey...a stray is a stray!

I am wondering though, if he's all scraggly and looks beat up- maybe he escaped from a cockfighting situation?

The last town we lived in obviously had someone keeping birds. I found a guinea hen one year. And a big white chicken just came strutting down the middle of the street about a year later. I wound up taking them both to a local farm.

Y'know, Chaos, I hadn't really thought about the cock fighting thing, but this is South Carolina and there is a possibility.

My neighbor's daughter told me they had gone to the back part of their property and they thought they could hear chickens. Their property runs from this street all the way back to the next street. Could be, but the police officeirs apparently didn't pick up on that aspect, and I'm not about to open up that problem.

I just hope that Charlie Chicken manages to live out such a dandy chicken's lifespan and keeps his unusually upperclass attitude.

OMG, speaking of the devil, and here he is. Right up the front steps and to the glass door. "Where's my lunch, my dear lady?"

He is starting to grow more feathers now. We found out he has taken up housing under my neighbors deck on the back of her house. So, he is doing very well for a hobo chicken.

I got pictures! Now, when I can get my son to perform the task of loading them on the computer, and when I can figure out how to post them on here, I'll introduce you to Charlie. I gave him some barley, corn meal and Fiber One and he is going to town on them. lol

Can't wait to see the pics! Now, every time I see your post, I think of Foghorn Leghorn from the cartoon of years ago.