OVIEDO, Fla. – Oviedo residents are wondering where their feathered friends have gone after they were reportedly relocated from a local shopping center.
Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek tells News 6 the owner of the Oviedo Shopping Center had the chickens humanely removed. However, News 6 has not yet been able to independently confirm that information.
“People are very concerned,” Sladek said. “Oviedo is famous for its chickens. When you’re coming into town, there are pictures of chickens on the welcome to Oviedo sign. So it’s a little bit of our identity.”
Sladek said she was unaware of the chickens’ removal.
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“Nope, nobody knew,” Sladek said. “To my knowledge, it was just a surprise to the tenants and to everybody who showed up and noticed they were gone all of a sudden.”
Sladek said the owner is within their private property rights to have the chickens removed.
“I love the chickens, I love running into them,” Sladek said. “But I also understand that they’re trying to run a shopping plaza. And it is a challenge when there’s poop everywhere. That’s a challenge.”
The manager of Ace Hardware, Kevin Cecile told News 6the chickens hadn’t really bothered him.
“Yeah, it took about two days we were like where are all the chickens? Because they were all over the place,” Cecile said.
Signs have also been placed around the shopping center’s parking lot asking people to not feed the chickens and to not abandon animals in the area.
While you may not see chickens as often in the Oviedo Shopping Center, they’re still around, just in different areas.
“They’re just not, not where they used to be,” Sladek said. “So there’s a lot on Reed Road. There’s some at the Atticus in the farm tractor spot over here, and there’s still chickens around.”
News 6 has reached out to the owner of the Oviedo Shopping Center and we have yet to hear back.
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