Why did the chicken cross the road?

You are probably thinking that the title of this post is a jest, but I assure you, it's not.

See? Chickens crossing the road to get from our across-the-street neighbor's house back to our house.

Notice the unhurried strolling technique, as if they were supposed to be across the street (which they weren't).

Strolling up the driveway... almost home!

Back on home turf. No, I do not know why I opened the gate for them, since they were clearly perfectly capable of going through the gate when it was closed.

The backstory of this picture sequence is that I came home from work last Friday to find all five of our Hyline hens across the street in the neighbor's yard. They had hopped through the bars on our front gate, then wandered across the street and under the neighbor's fence, so I had no easy way of getting them back. They were quite busy digging through the leaves and paid no attention to me the first time I went to get them.

A little closer to dusk, I tried again, whisting to them. I've never called a chicken before but they did eventually come follow me across the street and home to our yard. Saturday morning we put a bit of netting across the front gates to prevent any more escapees, and that seems to be successfully containing them.

As for why chickens cross the road, the answer is now completely obvious to me. Not only do they get to the other side, as evidenced by the above photos, but while doing so they are poultry in motion. ;)