Robert and Mary Burke made posters to track down the family of a loose chicken discovered in their Ten Mile Point neighbourhood. (Twitter/@QuenchWines)

A disorderly chicken has prompted an age old question to resurface in Victoria, with its rescuers asking why the bird crossed their road and more importantly, where she came from.

Robert Burke and wife Mary have their own collection of chickens at their Ten Mile Point property, so it wasn’t surprising that their neighbour assumed a loose Buff Orphington hen belonged to them.

“A neighbour called and said there was a chicken running around on the road,” Burke said. “We went down to see if it was one of ours.”

The chicken proved to be both “smart and fast,” Burke said, and managed to evade capture until he used an old fishing net to corral the speedy bird. The pair realized that the chicken was not one of theirs, and based on its frenzied nature, might even be feral.

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Buff Orphingtons are the “golden retrievers of chickens,” Burke said and are usually very friendly birds that don’t mind being handled.

“This one just get its hackles up if you go near it,” he said. “It’s very unaccustomed to being in a pen or a cage.”

Although the chicken now seems to be settling down and integrating into their flock, the Burkes still want to make an effort to find the chicken’s family, if she has one. Burke noted that chickens are a hot commodity in Victoria.

“How someone would lose a chicken, I’m not sure,” he said. “But whoever claims the chicken is going to have be have to be very persuasive to convince me that this is their chicken,” he added with a laugh. “I’m going to want to see a picture of them with the chicken.”

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Abandoned chickensVictoria