1. It's not illegal to kill a chicken for consumption a long as the killing is done legally. 2. People over reacting. People keep chickens as pets. A lot of people do, their goofy animals that make people laugh.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickens_as_pets Common sense says if someone has one chicken in a suburban area on a leash in their yard it's probably a pet chicken.
not sure if your referring to me [the nature of forum posts], but just in case, i was saying that jumping the fence and freeing the chicken would be a crime also, most people i know keep chickens neither for food nor as pets they keep them for the eggs