Chicken Vanishes, Heartbreak Ensues
May 27, 2011 9:32 AM   Subscribe

Chicken Vanishes, Heartbreak Ensues: A front-yard chicken in Brooklyn is stolen, and a neighborhood rallies. (SLNYT)
posted by dirtdirt (48 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
GOD DAMMNIT I WASTED ONE OF THE ALLOTTED ARTICLES I'M ALLOWED TO READ ON THE NYTIMES ON A FUCKING CHICKEN!
posted by Fizz at 9:35 AM on May 27, 2011 [11 favorites]


To be fair, you did warn me.
posted by Fizz at 9:36 AM on May 27, 2011


nobody say it nobody say it nobody say it nobody say it
posted by nathancaswell at 9:36 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


one word... BBQ

is that a word, or just letters?
posted by tomswift at 9:40 AM on May 27, 2011


nobody say it nobody say it nobody say it nobody say it

I'd... hit that?
posted by stavrogin at 9:40 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wait, isn't that article free so long as you click it from anywhere but the Times main site?

Have they investigated the front-yard foxes?
posted by anniecat at 9:41 AM on May 27, 2011


It was cute, charming even, until they got to this:

“We’re not sure where she’s been, but now she speaks Russian, has a few tattoos, and insists that we call her Kiki.”

And that's when I realized that I have must spiritual counterparts in NYC, because this is exactly what I would have said.

Except her name would have been Svetlana. It's a good name for a chicken.
posted by quin at 9:41 AM on May 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


For fucks sake, do you know what lengths you have to lock your bike up in that city? Unless your front-yard chicken was bolted down into the cement, it's gone.
posted by wcfields at 9:42 AM on May 27, 2011 [6 favorites]


Somehow, this song seems appropriate.
posted by echolalia67 at 9:43 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'm starting to see a pattern of otherworldly headlines here.
posted by Mooski at 9:47 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I keep reading that as "Chicken Vanishes, Hilarity Ensues".
posted by Trurl at 9:47 AM on May 27, 2011


I've already posted about all the fucking roosters in Brooklyn, kept mainly for cock fighting, that woke me up at daybreak for years.

When I was a kid there was a family down the street who kept a goat, a fucking goat, in their back yard. The kids used to come down to our backyard to take leaves off our grape vine to feed to the goat. Somehow the cops got wind of the goat, and this being pre-giuliani, allowed the family to slaughter it and roast it on a spit in the backyard.

Good Times, man. Good Times.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:49 AM on May 27, 2011


Uruuurp...


What?
posted by Splunge at 9:50 AM on May 27, 2011


The kids used to come down to our backyard to take leaves off our grape vine to feed to the goat.

Kids feeding their mom? Sad. Even kids in Brooklyn have to grow up fast.
posted by anniecat at 9:51 AM on May 27, 2011 [7 favorites]


Metafilter: the ceaseless bobbing, scratching, pecking.
posted by Naberius at 9:57 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Did they check across the road?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *suicide*
posted by DaDaDaDave at 9:57 AM on May 27, 2011 [11 favorites]


One time, when I was living in NYC, about ten years ago, I met a duck on the sidewalk. It was white, therefore probably not wild, and it wasn't particularly near any park or duck-pond. So I figure it was probably someone's lost property. It was just kind of ambling along. I don't know what ultimately happened to it.
posted by baf at 9:59 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


There are front yards in Brooklyn?
posted by DU at 10:08 AM on May 27, 2011


this is sad. i always love walking by that house and seeing the chicken huts.
posted by fuzzypantalones at 10:12 AM on May 27, 2011


oh and also the chickens
posted by fuzzypantalones at 10:13 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


As a fellow urban chicken raiser, this story has a happy ending which makes me happy. Many chickens have been lost in the war, many brave, valiant chicken, losing their lives in the fight to merrily peck wherever they may roam.

I love chickens, I can't eat them. But I can eat their eggs all damn day long.

Gertrude, I tip my hat to you.
posted by roboton666 at 10:17 AM on May 27, 2011


Call me a total fucking sap, but I love this story.

Welcome home Kiki.
posted by Sophie1 at 10:23 AM on May 27, 2011


oh. i should've gone to page 2. happy ending. :)
posted by fuzzypantalones at 10:23 AM on May 27, 2011


I love their little wings. Deep fried, with hot sauce and blue cheese and celery spears.
posted by dave78981 at 10:26 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


That kid should have shown up with a fried chicken first, then produced Gertrude. Imagine how relieved the owners would have been then!
posted by orme at 10:27 AM on May 27, 2011


I live in Bushwick. I snapped this back in March: Myrtle Ave chicken.

They're surprisingly common around here.
posted by defenestration at 10:39 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I thought about getting a chicken, but I couldn't decide about a name. It was either going to be "CatFood" or "DogFood". It probably didn't matter, and I could have just used the last name until we discovered what the first name actually should be.
posted by tomswift at 10:47 AM on May 27, 2011


For fucks sake, do you know what lengths you have to lock your bike up in that city? Unless your front-yard chicken was bolted down into the cement, it's gone.

In the past couple days 6 front gates have been stolen from my busy Fort Greene street - they gave up when ours was too busted up to remove easily. Some TV station is outside now making a ruckus about it.

So really, I'd keep an eye on my cement if I were you.
posted by soma lkzx at 10:54 AM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


Anybody seen my bucket of hens?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:56 AM on May 27, 2011


Nancy Luce of Martha's Vineyard loved her chickens so much she had headstones made for them.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:56 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


In the past couple days 6 front gates have been stolen from my busy Fort Greene street - they gave up when ours was too busted up to remove easily. Some TV station is outside now making a ruckus about it.

So really, I'd keep an eye on my cement if I were you.


Are there fence fences?
posted by defenestration at 10:58 AM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


That was heartwarming. I'm surprised that chickens are allowed in urban NYC at all.
posted by KGMoney at 10:59 AM on May 27, 2011


OK, so I've actually read the article and now I've got a big smile on my face. Thanks for posting this.
posted by defenestration at 11:05 AM on May 27, 2011


Are there fence fences?

You mean fences to guard your fences, or fences to sell stolen fences? Or are you really only asking about defencestration?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:11 AM on May 27, 2011 [6 favorites]


...exactly.
posted by defenestration at 11:13 AM on May 27, 2011


This was so cute it made me cry!
posted by serazin at 11:24 AM on May 27, 2011


(Before the reveal, I thought it was rats.)
posted by serazin at 11:24 AM on May 27, 2011


I'm led to believe that if a predator kills a chicken there's generally some feathers spread around from the struggle that makes it pretty easy to identify what happened. It sort of looks like the chicken exploded.
posted by GuyZero at 11:52 AM on May 27, 2011


I walk by this house every day. A new chicken appeared awhile back, and he was noticeably different from the other chickens. The main chickens are beautiful--plump, shiny, healthy birds. The new guy was pitiful-looking: scrawny and raggedy, with bald spots. He was also quarantined from the other chickens. He was in the yard with them, but stuck in a separate little coop. I had been wondering what the deal was with this poor little fellow for weeks when I saw one of the house's occupants out front. Turns out, little scrawny guy had just shown up in their yard one morning. He was quarantined so he could be socialized with the other chickens. He's now one of the gang, hanging out being a chicken with his fancier buddies.
posted by Mavri at 12:43 PM on May 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


Despite investing considerably more effort than I originally thought it would require, my complex Chicken Run-derived joke based on Mavri's story has failed to materialize. Sorry.
posted by Naberius at 12:54 PM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


It would have been glorious!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:06 PM on May 27, 2011


One time, when I was living in NYC, about ten years ago, I met a duck on the sidewalk. It was white, therefore probably not wild, and it wasn't particularly near any park or duck-pond. So I figure it was probably someone's lost property.

A few years back, when I lived on Avenue B, I passed a tree on the street....and out of the corner of my eye saw that there was a chicken sitting in the tree, about six or seven feet up from the ground. I've been wondering ever since how it got up there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:14 PM on May 27, 2011


I've been wondering ever since how it got up there.

Chickens can fly, just not very high off the ground (6 or 7 feet sounds about right) or for long distances. They roost in trees in the wild.
posted by echolalia67 at 1:17 PM on May 27, 2011


My story about encountering a chicken on Avon Hill in Cambridge is so much less interesting now.
posted by briank at 2:44 PM on May 27, 2011


Oh my gosh I know these chickens!! I used to walk past them sometimes on my way to the subway. This is amazing.
posted by crackingdes at 3:39 PM on May 27, 2011


I loved this story! I'm moving to Houston next month and the house I'm going to rent comes with four chickens.
posted by shoesietart at 5:41 PM on May 27, 2011


Electric, or gas?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:42 PM on May 27, 2011


a young man stood at the gate and shouted that he had “information about the chicken.” We went downstairs, opened the front door, and whom should we find but our beloved Gertrude, very much alive and full of her signature élan, tucked under the young man’s arm.

He was in his late 20s, remarkably handsome and stylishly dressed.

..Doctor?!
posted by pseudonymph at 9:58 PM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


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