It’s her clucky day!
The owner of a lost chicken was reunited with her missing bird on Wednesday with help from a so-called animal-rights activist, who returned the fowl to its Ditmas Park home and the care of its hen mother — only after conducting a tour of the place to ensure it was no poultry plant.
“It was weird, because people were in the house asking questions to make sure I’m not a murderer,” said Anastasia Page, whose hen Pom Pom flew the coop earlier this week. “But Pom Pom’s back.”
Page’s pet — a Polish Bantam chicken she keeps in a coop on the roof of her Flatbush Avenue home between Lenox Road and Caton Avenue — escaped from her digs on Sunday after strong winds broke open the shelter, according to the guy tasked with watching the birds while their owner was out of town that weekend.
“The coop was damaged in a storm, she got down from the rooftop, couldn’t get back up, and wound up on the street,” said Page’s roommate Tom Wilson.
Thus began Pom Pom’s excellent adventure, a chicken run that quickly went viral on social media after a neighbor posted pictures of the fabulous fowl with a mop of white feathers on its head strutting down the sidewalk, relaxing beneath a bush, and roosting atop a green cooler for e-grocer Amazon Fresh.
Wilson shared his and Page’s information on Facebook after discovering Pom Pom’s sudden internet fame, and the activist reached out two days after she escaped, telling Page he found the pet and left her in the care of a bird specialist, who gave the little chicken a once-over after its days on the lam.
Submitting to an inspection in order to reunite with her beloved bird did not thrill Page, but she said the rescuer and specialist left awed by the home she built for Pom Pom and her two other chickens, an Easter Egger named Kesha and a favaucana dubbed Tyrone, all of whom Page said she raised since they emerged from their eggs.
“He said he and this person are coming to my house to make sure I’m not crazy,” Page said. “They were pretty stoic, but by and large they seemed impressed.”
And although roosters, which can be nasty fighters, are among the animals outlawed as pets in New York City, chickens are perfectly legal, and are excellent companions — not least because they help in the kitchen from time to time, according to Wilson.
“They’re much beloved, and not just for the free eggs,” he said.
