Officials at Animal Care and Control are looking for the owner of an unusual stray, a hen found in the city over the weekend.
“It is a little bit odd,” Tanya Laughren at Animal Care and Control said Tuesday – staff at the city facility have been looking after a full-grown chicken, after it was found on the city’s north side over the weekend.
“It’s not every day you see a chicken in the city,” Laughren said.
Staff at the facility found the bird had some health problems, which are being dealt with.
“We determined that there were some issues, there were some mites and just some feather loss that we are treating currently,” Laughren said.
Animal Care and Control can take in up to 6,000 stray animals each year, ones that are not claimed by their owners are turned over to the Edmonton Humane Society where they are put up for adoption.
Meanwhile, officials are waiting to see if someone will come forward to claim the feathered stray.
“No one has yet come forward to say ‘Hey, that’s my chicken’,” Peace Officer Sabrina Bergin said.
Bergin said officials come across chickens a few times a year, and catching one can be a challenge.
“It can be quite arduous to try to catch a chicken, they don’t come when called,” Bergin said with a laugh.
This particular chicken doesn’t have a tag used to identify other birds that are part of Edmonton’s Urban Hen Project, making it difficult to track down the owner.
“Unlike dogs or cats where they have permanent microchipping or tattoos, that sort of thing, we’re not able to trace back chickens to an owner without that band,” Bergin said.
At this time 50 homes in Edmonton are legally housing backyard chickens, anyone illegally keeping chickens could face a $500 fine.
“Just like other animals we want to make sure the situation that they’re kept in is according to the standards that we set,” Bergin said.
With files from Shanelle Kaul
