After flying coop, hen's back home

Originally published in Preston Hollow People on Jan. 29, 2011.
 
It was a sad morning for the Smith family. Two weeks ago, they awoke to find that one of their barred rock hens had been attacked during the night and was injured.

Her sister, a gregarious bird named Oprah Winfrey, wasn’t so lucky: A pile of black and white feathers was all that remained.

Or so it seemed. For more than a week, Jim, Cindy, and teenagers Ellen and Warren mourned the loss of their favorite chicken, who they assumed had been nabbed by the predator that had mauled her sister in the backyard of their Hollow Way Road home.


As it turned out, Oprah wasn’t dead at all — she had just made a trip next door.

“The attack was Saturday, so we saw the feathers on Sunday, and the other one was missing at the same time,” Jim said. “So I connected all the feathers to the missing chicken. Of course, it was the
chicken that stayed and survived, who didn’t have any tail feathers left, who was the only one who got attacked .”

Oprah’s return home wasn’t as direct as her arrival in the neighbor’s yard. Sheila Hornsby, a pet sitter looking after pair of poodles next door, found the bird the morning following the attack.

Unaware that the Smith family was coping with the loss of their beloved Oprah, Hornsby called her boss, Park Cities Pet Sitters owner Kelly Moore, who called the only local hen keeper she knew, Dallas Morning News garden editor Mariana Greene.

Greene arrived shortly after, bearing meal worms, a favorite snack of her own flock of a dozen hens. Oprah ate the worms out of her hands, but Greene and Hornsby had to chase the bird for more than
an hour until they caught her, Hornsby said.

“I took hold of her and put her under my arm, which is how I carry my hens about, and this one, she didn’t flap. She didn’t try to get away. She didn’t squawk. She was just still,” Greene said. “She was
a tame animal, so I knew she was a pet.”

Since chickens can’t fly more than a few feet, she also knew the bird must have come from nearby.

She adopted the bird temporarily, adding to her flock of a dozen, expecting the owner to step forward once word of the lost chicken spread.

Information about the chicken was posted on several blogs and in the News, on a couple of online hen-keeping forums, and at North Haven Gardens. Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze, Greene’s
husband, wrote a blog post complaining that the hen had taken up residence in his kitchen and begging the owner to step forward.

But Cindy is the only Smith who reads the paper each morning, and she was out of town. Jim knew nothing of the search until a neighbor called after hearing about the lost chicken from
Preston Hollow People.

Jim contacted Greene and was reunited with his “little girl” on Monday evening. It was just in time, as Greene’s flock had a change of heart.

“Over the weekend they had quit jumping on her and accepted her. She’s just so nice. She’s just so friendly,” Greene said. “So I had named her Henny Penny, and I was going to keep her.”

Either way, Jim was relieved to have Oprah back, especially since he was the
one who forgot to close the chickens in their pen the night of the escape.

“It was my mistake, so I felt guilty for being a party to what I was afraid was a death
in the family,” Jim said.