Chooks flee coop to hit the town and take up residence at the pub FriFriday 5 Two chooks, a beer and a relieved Jaclyn Robinson at the Paynesville pub. ( Share Print text only Cancel If you were in downtown Paynesville this week you may have been held up by chickens crossing the road. A mother hen and her five chicks were living out the back of the Paynesville Hotel, spending their days visiting local shops and holding up traffic. Why did the chickens cross the Paynesville main street? ( "They'd been sleeping in a little cage at night," she said. "I'd gone out at night and shut their cage thinking they were in there. But the next day they were gone. Not a feather, not anything.