Will a rehomed chicken run away to her previous owner?

[LennyoftheSwamp]

I've searched this topic on here and on Google and haven't found any answers pertaining directly to my specific question.

About a couple of weeks ago, my neighbors flock was attacked during the night and only one survived. Rather than starting over, he asked us to take her in, as we already have an established flock. She's never been free-ranged as we do ours, so we've been keeping her in a run. However, we've tried letting her out a few times and she always bee lines straight towards the road in the direction of his house.

I know that chickens have good navigational senses and I'm wondering if she can tell that she's not that far from her previous home and is trying to return. I'm sure someone has likely had experience with something similar, do you think she'll eventually stop trying to run back or is it likely we'll have to always keep her in a run?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Hard to say how long it will take. They do try to get back to original sleeping quarters.
When I've relocated birds in sight of their old coop, some try to fly out of pens to enter old digs.
Add to that, a single bird may not be comfortable with new flock mates and miss old friends even if deceased.

 

[LennyoftheSwamp]

Hard to say how long it will take. They do try to get back to original sleeping quarters.
When I've relocated birds in sight of their old coop, some try to fly out of pens to enter old digs.
Add to that, a single bird may not be comfortable with new flock mates and miss old friends even if deceased.

She can't see his house or anything, we live in an extremely rural area. He's our neighbor but it's about a 15 minute walk to his house, so not super close, but also not so far she couldn't find him, either. So far she doesn't really seem quite happy here, yet. I'm sure she's probably still in shock between losing her flock and the only home she's known, plus she probably misses her old owners. We've been trying to make sure she always has everything she needs and probably overdoing it on the treats a little in attempt to win her over, but she's still very complain-y most of the time. I know it'll take time for her to settle in, I'm just concerned that if she ever slips out somehow that she could get lost or hurt trying to find her way back to the neighbor.

 

[Alaskan]

She can't see his house or anything, we live in an extremely rural area. He's our neighbor but it's about a 15 minute walk to his house, so not super close, but also not so far she couldn't find him, either. So far she doesn't really seem quite happy here, yet. I'm sure she's probably still in shock between losing her flock and the only home she's known, plus she probably misses her old owners. We've been trying to make sure she always has everything she needs and probably overdoing it on the treats a little in attempt to win her over, but she's still very complain-y most of the time. I know it'll take time for her to settle in, I'm just concerned that if she ever slips out somehow that she could get lost or hurt trying to find her way back to the neighbor.

Definitely a risk.

Sadly there is no way to know ahead of time how long it will take her to bond with your place.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

It takes two weeks for a chicken to get settled into a new place. If she doesn't get settled in two weeks, go for a month.

That's the average though. My bantams would try to return to their old roosting spot even after a year from being away from it.