Will more adventure-seeking chickens like this one be seeking to hit the open road? PIC: Steve Jones
Grey nomads travel Australia with animal companions ranging from goats and guppies to cockatoos and cocker spaniels, but ‘Chook Chook’ can probably claim to be the first chicken to do the Big Lap.
Incredibly, the adventure-seeking hen wasn’t born to roam but seized an opportunity to embrace the free-range lifestyle when unsuspecting caravanners, Judy and Greg Hay, briefly stopped in at a Margaret River farm stay back in October.
When the Gold Coast couple later pulled up in Busselton, they noticed they were attracting a lot of attention.
Mrs Hay told the Community News that when they stopped at a car park, a man asked: “Do Queenslanders always carry their livestock like that?”
“We go around the back of the car and there was the chook sitting on the hitch of the caravan,” she said. “And we had been going at about 100km/h almost all the way.”
Impressed by the chicken’s courageous freedom bid, the Hays sought – and received – permission from the original owners to keep the chook, and it is now a travel buddy for the pair’s border collie, Missy.
And Chook Chook has been eager to do her bit to keep travel costs down.
“She lays an egg every day,” Mrs Hay told the Community News. “Nothing seems to worry her, she is so placid.”
Chook Chook now has her own cage to sleep in at night.
“She takes herself to bed every day,” said Mrs Hay. “We don’t call it a cage – we call it a bedroom because we don’t like caged eggs.”
The couple plan to be back in the Gold Coast for Christmas and are excited to introduce Chook Chook to the rest of the family,”
• Have you ever picked up an animal hitchhiker? What’s the most unusual creature you have seen people travelling with? Comment below.
Totally true story. I have numerous photographs of Chook Chook with Missy. Also when Judy knitted colourful jackets for the, matching colours, because they both felt the cold. Sadly Chook Chook passed over the Rainbow Bridge and some time later Missy joined her. A lovely animal memory