What was a lone hen doing in the yard, a few feet from a busy city street?

One Sunday morning this past fall I was out walking my dog when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a rust-coloured mass huddled in the low, dense hedge that surrounds my next-door neighbour’s house. I wasn’t wearing my glasses so I had to squint, but I could make out that the mass had feathers and a bright red comb. It was a chicken.

I’ve lived in my neighbourhood for a few years and didn’t know of anyone who kept backyard hens. In my twenty years in Vancouver, the only other time I’ve even seen a chicken within city limits was at least a decade ago, when a hen that must have escaped the rendering plant near Commercial Drive was fleeing down Hastings Street. So, what’s this hen doing here, huddled in a bush a few steps from a noisy, busy north-south corridor, not anywhere near the rendering plant?

I pulled out my phone and called the SPCA. Surely they’d know what to do.

“I’m afraid we don’t deal with things like that,” said the woman at the SPCA after I described the situation. “You should call Animal Control.”

The dog, who ’til that point had been happily chewing a stick on the neighbour’s front lawn, finally clued in that there was another animal in play and lunged toward the chicken, startling her. I reeled in the dog by her leash and took her home, hoping the chicken wouldn’t try to make a break for it in the meantime.

By the time I got back the hen had gone to another neighbour’s house and crouched under their hedge. I dialled 311, the City of Vancouver’s general phone line, and settled in for the long haul of navigating its perplexing phone tree: Do I want to report a missed garbage pickup? Do I want to find the location of a city park? Do I want to rat out a neighbour for doing something I didn’t particularly care for? I stood on the sidewalk trying to press the right buttons on my phone while keeping track of the chicken’s whereabouts. I was on hold for many minutes.

Finally, a human answered.

“Hi, this is Ira with the City of Vancouver. How can I help you today?”

“Hi. So, I was out for a walk and found a chicken. I live on a really busy street and I don’t think it’s safe.”

“Uhhhhh… This is a little out of my area of expertise,” said Ira. “Let me get my supervisor.”

I waited on hold again until a cheerful-sounding woman picked up the line and said, “Hello, this is Veronica. You’re calling about a chicken at large?”

I looked down at the hen. Her head was cocked and she peered back at me. I managed to get out, “Yes, I found a hen and I live on a super busy street. I’m just afraid she’s going to…”

“Try to cross the road?” said Veronica, before we both cracked up.

We worked out that an Animal Control officer wouldn’t be able to come pick up the hen for a while. (The City does not immediately dispatch an officer in instances of chickens at large.) I offered to take the hen to my fenced-in yard to wait.

“I can’t really recommend that or offer you any advice on how to pick up a chicken,” said Veronica.

When I was a kid in Cape Breton, my family kept hens, along with a few cows, a couple of pigs, a horse and some ponies. “It’s okay,” I told Veronica. “I grew up on a farm. I can get this chicken home.”

The neighbour under whose hedge the chicken was sheltering had by this time come to find out why a random woman was loitering outside her house staring at her shrubbery. She fetched a large basket from inside and together we corralled the hen toward it. I snatched the hen, put her in the basket and walked down the street to my house.

In the yard, I lifted the hen out of the basket and gently placed her on the ground, where she immediately began to scratch and peck and forage. I decided to call her Heather.

Heather looked like a Golden Comet, the kind of hen we kept when I was a kid, a breed known for being friendly, mellow and weather tolerant, and for being good egg producers. Heather also looked like she’d had a rough night. She had no visible injuries, but she was missing most of the feathers that should have covered her behind. Despite that, she seemed content; she dug up and ate worms and pecked at the birdseed I’d sprinkled around.

Observing Heather as she made herself at home in the yard was relaxing and I must have lost track of time, because my boyfriend came looking for me. He was incredulous when I told him I’d just found the hen near the street and decided to take her home, but after a few minutes of watching her scratch around he said, “I could easily build a coop for her today.”

The City of Vancouver permits hens to be kept in yards and has, on its website, a document called “Basic Chicken Care.” It’s not an exhaustive treatise by any means, but for a document produced at the city hall of an urban centre, it’s pretty accurate.

“Chickens can live as long as a dog or cat—up to 14 years or longer.”

“A single chicken is a sad chicken. Plan to have at least 2—they are flock animals and need the companionship of other chickens.”

“Sometimes single birds can thrive with a human friend if they have special needs.”

“Taking a dust bath is the closest thing to heaven for a chicken.”

“Lots of large branches, stumps or platforms provide places to go and things to do and look natural and attractive in the pen.”

My boyfriend and I worked out the logistics of keeping Heather, and perhaps a few hen friends: what kind of coop and predator deterrents we might need, and how we might introduce our hens safely to the dog. Heather scuttled around the yard in ever-widening circles, bobbing her head, occasionally pausing to regard us with one of her beady yellow eyes. A few times she made her way toward us, probably curious.

Just as the urban farm fantasy looked like it could become reality, the Animal Control officer pulled up in a gigantic white truck that could have housed a horse, let alone a three-pound hen. The officer opened the side door and from the truck collected a tiny kennel of the type used to transport cats. He looked uncomfortable as he watched Heather forage. He told me that he’d only handled a hen once, and that he’d had to grab it by the leg—a manoeuvre expressly forbidden by “Basic Chicken Care”! With a look, my boyfriend and I decided it might be best if we handled this. We shepherded the hen toward the open kennel door and, when she was close enough, grabbed her and placed her inside. The officer loaded Heather into the giant truck. I asked what would happen to her.

“I’ll take her to Wildlife Rescue. They’re better able to handle birds than Animal Control. Then we’ll try to find her owners or a new home.”

“What if no one claims her? Would you ever need a foster home for her?”

The officer just looked at me.

“Well, can I follow up and find out what happens?”

The officer told me that I could call the City in a couple of days for an update.

On Tuesday morning I called the City of Vancouver, navigated the phone tree and talked with a staff member, who gave me the mobile phone number for my Animal Control officer. I called and left a message. The officer called back right away. He informed me that the evening prior, Heather (he didn’t use her name) had been transported to a farm in the Fraser Valley to live out the rest of her life. I hope it is “up to 14 years or longer.”