Photo credit: Phyllis Tseng/Wild Bird Fund
Feb. 22, 2021 By Christina Santucci
A chicken found in a beer box in Astoria Park last weekend is on the mend at a Manhattan bird rehab center.
The rescued hen, now named Lily, is being treated for bumblefoot and other potential infections, but is still a bit lethargic, a spokesperson for the Wild Bird Fund said Sunday.
“Otherwise, hopefully she’ll be fine,” the spokesperson said.
Astoria resident Brianne Hernandez found the chicken in Astoria Park at around 8:30 p.m. Feb 13. She said she had been walking with her husband and dog when her husband spotted a Heineken beer box.
“He was joking, Oh, people must have been drinking and sledding,” she said.
Her dog peeked into the box then backed away as if frightened, so Hernandez’s husband went to check it out.
Surprisingly, a live chicken was inside.
“It was so random,” Hernandez said. “If my dog hadn’t realized, we would have kept walking.”
She posted on a neighborhood Facebook group, asking what to do and found out about the Wild Bird Fund. Hernandez was worried about taking the chicken home because she was due to have a baby any day, and she didn’t know how Parker, her 90-pound German Shepard, would react to the hen.
So a family who had been sledding nearby agreed to bring the chicken to the Manhattan rescue facility the next day.
The Wild Bird Fund said the chicken was spared from hypothermia or starvation.
“It made me happy to know that we were able to rescue her and save her because it was really cold that night,” Hernandez said.
