The chicken was wandering around the parking lot of the Stellarton campus on March 12, and was captured by commissionaire Stewart Petitpas with help from a student.
Petitpas kept the hen in his office in a cardboard box for the day, during which time a fairly constant parade of curious students and staff members came by to look at her.
He then took the chicken home while trying to find out where she came from.
An NSCC staff member said the hen is now back with her owner. “She’s glad to have her back.”
It’s unclear how the chicken made her way from her home to the school, but some students reported seeing her jump out of the back of a truck.
The chicken’s owner, who didn’t wish to be identified, had told Petitpas that he could keep the hen when she found out he had become quite fond of her.
However, Petitpas said while he had planned to build a coop for her in his backyard and get more hens, he doesn’t think she would be happy in his house until the weather gets warmer.
“If it was summer, I would keep her, but it’s too hard for her to be in the basement. I feel bad.”
While in Petitpas’s office at NSCC, the hen laid an egg, and he said she laid two more while staying at his house in New Glasgow.
He said the hen was quite comfortable there, and was getting along well with his other pets – a dog and two cats. But he knows she’s better off with her owner.
“She’ll be happier with the other chickens.”
