Chicken ran away... for a week??

[LindseyDMD]

Lately, my Frannie girl has been a little Houdini and somehow escaping out of the chicken run. We could never catch her doing it and blocked off everywhere we could find she might be getting out, but we were unable to stop her. This Sunday, the 12th, we ran errands early afternoon. When we came home, she was not in the run. However, this time she also was not still in the yard. We looked under every single thing we could find, I walked all through the woods calling her name, drove up and down the street, checked all the trees... Nothing. Being bright orange, she is hard to miss. We did have a family of hawks move in recently and since we couldn't find a single feather or any evidence of some struggle, we assumed a hawk got her when we were gone. I watched the coop the rest of the day and night to see if she would come home but she never did. Fast forward to yesterday when my husband walks outside and guess what... There the little heffer is!! Just eating grass like nothing happened. Has anyone been through this? How in the world could she have survived all those nights and not been eaten?

She had obviously also laid when she was on hiatus because she has been growling and puffy and chirping since she's been back. No one can get near her and she is seemingly distressed. She has a bad rap about being broody back to back, so I wonder if she was laying on an egg the whole week and that's why she didn't come home? Why would she come home now?

 

[chickens really]

Yes, she must be Broody again and sitting on eggs. She came home to eat and will head back to her nest.

 

[sourland]

She has a hidden nest somewhere and has gone broody and is setting on the eggs.

 

[True Patriot]

I agree that she's probably broody and try to nest somewhere. Would her eggs be fertile? If not she'll be sitting on a remote nest at risk for no reason. Either way you may want to try following her when she leaves to find the nest. Keeping watch should at least give you a direction to search in.

 

[staceyj]

She was probably hiding in a nest somewhere under a bush or behind something, got hungry, quit, and came home.

 

[LindseyDMD]

We sealed up every possible opening no matter how small and thankfully she is still home. I have a hankering to let her out and see where she goes because I am curious how we missed her for almost a whole week. But no, we only have three hens so they shouldn't be fertile unless she has had some conjugal visits we don't know about.

Thank you everyone for the answers I'm just so glad nothing got her and hopefully we have successfully closed her escape route.

 

[A.M. Eggs]

If you don't have something over the top of your fence she could be flying over.

 

[LindseyDMD]

I thought she was flying out! She is a really good flyer and the tarp we have as a roof had a small opening, so I thought that was her route. We closed it first but she was still getting loose. Lord only knows how lol. So I let her out for giggles and she led me right to it... A few feet from the coop! My husband even cut the weeds back right there and never saw her and she never moved. My wild child

 

[LindseyDMD]

Next to her nest is our watch dog Bella's kennel, so I wonder if being next to a dog helped deter predators? It's a wonder a raccoon didn't make her and her eggs dinner

 

[aart]

Sneaky little stinker!!
Glad you found it.
Now whatcha gonna do?