Beloved Chicken Takes Magical Mystery Tour Of Crown Heights

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — The panic was clear in the prose of the message posted to the Crown Heights Patch's neighbor post board: MISSING!!! CHICKEN!!

"I was losing my mind, honestly," said chicken mom and couples sex counselor Lovetta Taillor, 37. "She went adventuring, apparently."

Patch's investigation ended in victory Wednesday when we learned Penguin the missing chicken had been returned to her Crown Heights home the night before, after a nearly two-week long "vacation" in spot not most marauders would choose: a nearby parking garage.

"Turns out she she had a nice little cozy little setup," Taillor said. "And she was just on vacation."

Penguin's epic journey through central Brooklyn began since last spring, when Taillor — a Portland, Ore. native — and cinematographer partner Berry Cohen, 27, decided to get some bird babies.

"I thought we were going to just get a few," Cohen told Patch of their trip to New Jersey to pick their chicks. "But my love over here was like: 'how about we try a few more?'"

Cohen and Taillor, who has experience running a farm with chickens, now host in their Crown Heights backyard eight chicks, two of which turned out to be an uncommon breed of Bantam chickens, a smaller, fancy cock that fits right in your hand.

See more: Pompom The (Bantam) Chicken Was Missing

But two weeks ago, that number was reduced to seven.

At first the couple didn't worry. Penguin, a large black chicken, had disappeared before, but was soon found resting above their heads.

"We found her just roosting in this tree in our yard," Cohen said, "we were looking for her for four and a half hours."

But Penguin had her sights set on a journey beyond her backyard.

The first night, Taillor and Cohen said they were searching until 2 a.m., on the first night of New York City's recent cold spell.

"I was freaking out," Taillor said, "I was like: 'Oh my god like like she's gonna freeze to death, she's gonna die, she's gonna die in this weather.'"

But no sign of Penguin.

The couple made signs and plastered them across the neighborhood.

On Thanksgiving day, they got a text from a neighbor with a picture of what looked like Penguin.

"It could have been that other black chicken that's missing in Brooklyn," joked Taillor.

Once they got the text, they immediately postponed Thanksgiving dinner until the following evening, spending the next six hours searching for their beloved bird.

"I don't care that I spent 12 hours making this dinner," Taillor remembers thinking. "This can wait."

But still, they were one chicken short in their flock.

Exhausted by the search, Cohen was ready to throw in the towel on Monday.

"I was basically ready to give up. I was like, All right, it's up to the streets now," Cohen said, "I put up posters, I put up posters, asked practically every neighbor I could, searched from any rooftop I had access to, searched by night by day. Been to the same parking garage like six times."

Taillor was not having that.

"'You don't even care about our babies?'" she recalled saying to Cohen. "I got real mad."

The next day they woke up with a text message they had been waiting for: "I got her."

Penguin, it turns out, was found and being well-cared for by the super of the parking garage behind their home.

He had made the chicken a little nest, feeding her berries and cheeses and forming a bond with the wayward bird. And, most importantly, he kept her warm.

Penguin even laid three eggs for her new friend.

Cohen said that in addition to the promised reward of a lifetime supply of Brooklyn fresh eggs, they'll also offer up any hatchlings born from Penguin, since it was clear that "he was sad giving her back."

The super told Cohen that "'I really liked her, I want to visit her, I want to feed her berries.'"

He was worried about eating the three eggs Penguin gifted him, because he thought maybe they would hatch.

"'Well, if you've got that big of a heart then all right, yes, you can definitely have any of our babies.'" Taillor said at the time.