The brown shaver stowed away on a trailer on Tuesday, travelled 90km from her Tapanui home and escaped when owner Justin Cronin stopped to unload the trailer of scrap metal in Alexandra.
One of five chickens owned by the Cronin family, Charlie was on the run for four days and Justin, his wife Nicole and sons Josh (9) and Lachlan (11) thought the worst.
''We'd resigned ourself to never seeing Charlie again. We thought that her fate would be ending up in the jaws of some dog,'' Mrs Cronin said.
Stories about the hen who flew the coop featured in the Otago Daily Times and every time the Cronins went out, they fielded questions about the wayward chicken's whereabouts.
''It's been quite a topic of conversation around town,'' Mrs Cronin said. On Saturday night, the Cronins got some good news - Charlie had chickened out and was caught where she escaped, in the scrap metal yard.
''She must've been in the yard all the time, hiding in the piles of scrap metal and she came walking out when it was all quiet and the man who works in the yard saw her.
She'd have been foraging for food and was in good health and the people from the yard managed to catch her, using some hen pellets in a possum trap,'' Mrs Cronin said.
The Cronins' reunion with their pet in Alexandra yesterday went well - ''the kids were pretty happy to see her''- and aside from being ''jet-lagged'', Charlie was none the worse for her adventure.
The news Hollywood legend Robert Redford was coming to town next year to film a remake of the Disney classic Pete's Dragon was said to have set Tapanui ''aflutter'' and Mrs Cronin wondered whether there might be a role in the movie for an adventurous fowl.
Meanwhile, Charlie seems to have settled in well back home, but would have to reacclimatise, as the weather in Alexandra was ''lovely'' but it was colder in Tapanui, she said. And eggs were back on the menu, with Charlie expected to earn her keep.
