I just got a hen and chicks from a woman that said she had gotten lazy and just let the chickens free roam all summer long...and that she lost more than a few, but she said she thought most of them were gone, but then they started showing back up with bunches of babies. Lol. So sometimes chickens run off in the woods, but end up making it back home eventually. I feel that chickens don't become lost, they are birds, and as such can get their bearings rather easily...Sometimes our chickens "lose" their ramp and try to walk up the stairs in the front of the building. They have the top floor of a 2 story garage type building thing...Lol. Anyway, there are lots of things out there hunting chickens so more often than not a missing chicken is a dead chicken, but there are those times that defy odds and your chicken comes back...and apparently in the middle of nowhere in WNC the chickens come back multiplied.