What's Genny For?

Prodigal Chickens

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Last Saturday the redheaded minions kiddos and I let our 9 chicks outside for the first time in their lives.
They're somewhere around 6-8 weeks old, so it was time.

Although a bit leery about the grass and the big, wide world, they seemed to be enjoying snapping up bugs and scratching in the dirt until my 3-year-old got it in his head to try to "catch" them.

Off they ran, squawking and fluttering their gawky little wings — right through the wire fence in our backyard!

Nooooo!

I didn't realize they were still small enough to fit through those gaps. With help from the minions kids, we rounded up 6 of the ladies. One frantic chick paced back and forth on the wrong side of the fence before flying over the wire, back to her friends.

That brought us to 7 of our original 9 chickens. The other two disappeared into a tangle of blackberries and ivy.

I warned our neighbor about the escapees and was promised their return, should they show up for a visit. But I didn't expect them to be found. I figured the raccoons or feral cats would get'em. Or maybe they'd reveal themselves to a homeless person and become dinner.

A day passed. I kept hearing the cheeping of a chick but assumed it was one of the 7 down in the basement. Every now and again one of the chicks would get noisy for no explainable reason. Except...it sounded like the noise was coming from the front door. Minion, er, Child A opened said door and, lo and behold, one of the chicks was on the front porch!

I immediately snatched her up and carted her downstairs to her mates, where they surrounded her and listened to her frantic chirping. I could just imagine the story she was telling them about surviving all night long in the great outdoors. Alone.

We were back to 8 chickens.

The next day (a little less than 48 hours later), my 3-year-old, F, looks out the glass partition on our front door and says.

"Mama. Me. See. Chicken."

I jump up and race out to find chicken #9 darting under our van. With a bit of finagling (this hen didn't really want to be captured again), Child F helped to grab her before she could run back into the blackberries and ivy.

Our prodigal chickens had returned!

Now what gets to me is, how did they know where their home was? They'd never been outside except the day they'd gotten loose. And they'd NEVER been in the front! Yet, somehow, they seemed to know where they were supposed to live!

Was it instinct? Could they sense the other chicks were nearby? Or was it coincidence? What do YOU think?