Loose chicken fouls N train as subway stowaway slows morning commute

Call it fowl play.

A loose chicken took a “free range” ride, scoring a gratis subway trip to Coney Island on the N train Thursday morning after it was discovered fouling a subway car in storage.

An MTA train operator called rail control shortly after 5:20 a.m. to report that he’d found a live chicken aboard his train, which was parked on a layup track south of Astoria Blvd. The poultry passenger had “soiled the interior of the car,” sources told the Daily News.

The train, which was due to depart from the Astoria-Ditmars station on a southbound run at 6 a.m., reached that station from the layup track around 5:50 a.m.

The train car was deemed too dirty to go into service, an MTA supervisor reported a short time later — adding that the chicken was “refusing to leave the train.”

The MTA’s rail control center put in a call to the city’s animal control hotline, but did not get a response, sources said.

Nearly 15 minutes after the train was due to begin its run, MTA crews decided that forcing the chicken off the train into the waiting crowd at Astoria-Ditmars could be unsafe.

Rail control decided to cancel the run and send the train — and its feathered stowaway — down to the Coney Island Yard.

An MTA spokesman confirmed the incident, adding that N train service was briefly delayed by 10 minutes because of it.

Sources told The News the plucky bird made it to the southern Brooklyn train yard no worse for wear. Animal Control took the fare-jumping fowl into custody around 3 p.m.