we just find stray chickens,” she says. If there’s one thing urban chicken novices should know, Sehnert says, it’s to trim the birds’ flight wing feathers. Otherwise, they can fly away and you don’t know where they’ll land. Animal Control staffers would prefer not to spend their time capturing a chicken, Sehnert says. “It can really make you feel like a dufus.” In 2012, Missoula Animal Control received 23 chicken complaints. Some of those were about hens on the loose. At the shelter, stray chickens
are placed in an outdoor kennel. It’s not optimal, Sehnert says, largely because dogs inhabit adjacent cages. “We don’t have any place for chickens,” she says. Despite the challenges, Sehnert and her colleagues make it work. In the winter, for instance, they place a heating pad in the outdoor kennel to keep stray birds warm. Sehnert says that the shelter has never had to euthanize a chicken. Other fowl-related complaints last year stemmed from noise—mostly illegal roosters within city limits, Sehnert says. That often happens because it’s
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