'Chicken Run' stowaway hen lays after 90-mile egg lorry adventure

A hen found under an egg lorry after stowing away for 90 miles thanked rescuers by immediately laying an egg.

The plucky clucker spent the journey wedged under the trailer which had come from Lincolnshire, the RSPCA said.

She was found "bedraggled" but unharmed at a factory in Hertfordshire after staging an escape reminiscent of cartoon film Chicken Run.

Staff at the Borehamwood plant popped her in a box where she became "so comfortable she laid an egg".

"It was the real life Chicken Run for this bird," the charity quipped, referring to the animation where cooped-up chickens plan a coup in a bid to escape being turned into pies.

"The journey would have been a feat of 'hendurance' for this little explorer but thankfully, the brave bird was completely unscathed," inspector Nicole Smith said.

"She was a little bedraggled from the wet and windy two-hour journey but she certainly wasn't in a flap when she was found."

The hen was found in the egg delivery lorry on 18 June, but efforts to trace her owner have failed so the animal charity has found a home for Henrietta - as she has been named - in Hertfordshire with Hilary Carlen, who has adopted other farm birds from the RSPCA.

Mrs Carlen said of her new feathered friend: "I don't think most hens would have survived that kind of stress.

"She's particularly robust as she seemed absolutely unruffled."