By 1976, the colony had grown to about 50 birds, described as Rhode Island Reds. They acquired a guardian in Minnie Blumfield, an elderly retiree who fed them regularly and gave the flock its nickname. That same year, authorities relocated nearly a hundred chickens to a ranch in Simi Valley. But not every bird was captured. Those that remained did what chickens do: they multiplied. Subsequent removal efforts over the following years all ended the same way. The colony at Vineland eventually spawned a second population two miles away at the Burbank ramp. The chickens, it seems, were here to stay.

The mystery of how the chickens arrived has generated competing claims worthy of a detective novel. In 1990, Jeff Stein of Granada Hills came forward with a tale from 1968: his wife and her twin sister, then twelve years old, had rescued chickens from a school that was closing and deposited two pillowcases full of birds near the freeway. In 1992, a man identifying himself only as Michael claimed he and his brother had abandoned their pet chickens there as children. The most widely repeated explanation involves an overturned poultry truck, with Joe Silbert of Laguna Hills claiming in 2000 to be the driver. But Silbert said his truck carried only hens destined for slaughter - no roosters. A colony of hens alone cannot reproduce, casting doubt on his account.

There was at least one eyewitness to a poultry truck incident. A commuter heading to work in Glendale reported seeing a multiple rear-end collision on the 5 Freeway with blood and feathers scattered across the pavement. On the overpass above sat a truck loaded with poultry cages, and chickens could be seen walking in the freeway median, which at the time had no walls. Whether this was the legendary truck of origin or another incident entirely remains unclear. The true source of the Hollywood Freeway chickens may never be definitively established.

The resilience of the freeway chickens captured the imagination of Terry Pratchett, the beloved British fantasy author, who wrote a short story titled Hollywood Chickens inspired by their unlikely survival. In 1984, the City of Los Angeles considered commemorating the birds with a large mural along the north wall of the Hollywood Freeway. The mural was ultimately rejected for funding and never completed, but the chickens needed no monument. Their continued presence beneath the off-ramp, generation after generation, stands as its own testament to adaptability.

The Hollywood Freeway chickens belong to a proud tradition of Los Angeles wildlife that refuses to follow the script. They share the city with other famous animals including Reggie, the alligator who eluded capture in Harbor City for two years, and various turkeys that have wandered neighborhoods with similar disregard for urban planning. The chickens represent something both absurd and enduring about Los Angeles: a place where the unexpected thrives in plain sight, where domesticated birds can go feral beneath a major freeway and no one can quite agree on how they got there or how to make them leave.