The chicken that flew the coop Wednesday and ruffled a few feathers on the Bay Bridge is now at the center of a fierce custody battle, the Contra Costa Times reports. Bizarrely, three parties have claimed that the missing bird is their own.

"She's a very popular chicken," Oakland Animal Shelter's Rebecca Katz said of the fowl the California Highway Patrol recovered from the road and have been affectionately calling by the self-referential name "Chip."

After receiving three calls and claims of ownership, "We've told them to come down with proof," Katz says. "They'd have to show us pictures to identify it being theirs... We'll go from there."

The CHP brought Chip to a shelter in Berkeley, as the Examiner reports, who in turn traded it in to the Oakland Animal Shelter.

It's possible that the Bay Bridge chicken's recent celebrity has led to spurious claims of ownership. Indeed, yesterday Chip reportedly laid an egg — was it golden?

Previously: Chickens Run Amok On Bay Bridge