If you walk along Consul Street in Albert Lea, you might hear a chicken clucking under the semitrailers at Albert Lea Trailer.

And if you ask how a chicken got there, you’ll hear a story. This is how Wayne Borneman tells it:

Chuck Borneman, the owner of Albert Lea Trailer Repair, went to an auction in Owatonna on Thursday. Chuck lives in Clarks Grove and is Wayne’s father.

When Chuck returned to Clarks Grove, he noticed a chicken strutting around his yard he didn’t have before. He figured it was a stowaway from the auction.

Then he drove to Albert Lea Trailer, 2101 Consul St., and Wayne noticed brown feathers in the driver’s side rear wheel well of his dad’s half-ton Chevy pickup. It was a hen.

Two stowaway chickens somehow managed to ride all the way from Owatonna to Clarks Grove, and one of the two made the second trip to Albert Lea.

The Bornemans figure they might have gotten away from some Amish farmers, who sell chickens at the auction in Owatonna.

Wayne said they plan to let the chickens be. The one at Albert Lea Trailer has been living on the lot, feeding off the corn leftover in the grain trailers Albert Lea Trailer sells and repairs.