news, local-news, Stockleigh, chicken, mount lindesay highway

A CRAZY domestic hen has survived a car ride from Logan to Brisbane and the Gold Coast perched under a vehicle. The owner was not aware of the hen hitching a ride until her son was pulled over on the Mount Lindesay Highway on Monday by another driver who said “you have got a chicken on your diff, mate”. Owner Melonie-Jane McNaughton from Stockleigh said the hen was in the habit of using vehicles as perches. Ms McNaughton’s son Reon Williams of Cedar Vale went for a run in his Toyota Hilux on Sun, visiting the Gold Coast, Redland Bay and Brisbane. The well travelled hen was re-named Dora after the children’s animated character, Dora the Explorer. “I went and checked all my chickens when they went to bed (on Saturday) and I said that bloody crazy chicken went missing again,” Ms McNaughton said. “She must have sat on (my son’s) diff on Saturday morning or lunch time. She has been on there for nearly three days. She normally hops off cars and goes away. “How she hadn’t been killed or fallen off or ended up somewhere else makes me laugh. It is just odd. “I would love to thank the lady who pulled my son over. I just want to find the person who said ‘you have a chicken on your diff, mate’.” Ms McNaughton said Dora was in good condition when they were reunited but had to have a bath to wash away a good coating of oil. “She lost a bit of weight so I gave her a good feed,” she said. “There was nothing wrong with her.” Ms McNaughton said Dora was one of the more difficult of the 21 hens on her property. “She segregates herself away from everyone else. Others go to bed and she just won’t go,” she said. “That is why I always count my chickens before I go to bed.” In 2011, the RSPCA rescued a kookaburra which had become entangled in the grill of a car. It travelled 700 kilometres before the driver realised he had a hitch hiker. Ms McNaughton described herself as a “crazy animal lady” and said her property was a haven for quirky creatures. “Every animal here is someone’s rejected animal,” she said. “I have three horses in a paddock that were going to be euthanised, the chickens were giveaways and I have reject pigs.”

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