A celebrity rooster who thinks he’s a kitten has gone missing from the Funny Farm Rescue

Squiggy, a four-pound rooster who thinks he’s a kitten, is so cute that people visiting the Funny Farm Rescue & Sanctuary in Mays Landing, N.J., regularly ask to take him home with them.

Now, with the globally adored Squiggy missing since Election Day, the question is: Did somebody actually take Squiggy?

“We are so desperate,” said volunteer Kim Myles on Sunday, when the reward for Squiggy’s return grew to $1,800. “He’s the cutest little white rooster. Everybody fights over him.”

Myles thinks someone stuck Squiggy, who is not much bigger than a bag of Doritos, in a pocket or under a jacket and took off.

Squiggy was last seen on chilly Nov. 8 with three bantam chickens underneath founder Laurie Zaleski’s hot tub, near the house where she lives on the Farm.

Zaleski is offering the reward, “no questions asked,” pledged by three donors for the return of Squiggy, who has been at the farm since being surrendered about two years ago.

He was living contentedly among Zaleski’s 11 dogs, 20 goats, 15 horses, 2 llamas and about 600 other animals in the bucolic farm where the animals are mostly free to walk around, and where many have unusual personalities, underdog stories and cross-breed friendships.

With a following on social media across the globe, the animals have become celebrities, such as Ricky the peacock, who had been slated for euthanasia because of a spinal cord injury, or Cooper the alpaca, who hangs out with his best friend, Yogi, the 1,200-pound calf. Zaleski wrote of her unusual story in a memoir earlier this year.

Squiggy was mostly just cute. He was surrendered because his owners thought he was a chicken. When he turned out to be a rooster, he was no longer allowed to be kept as a pet.

» READ MORE: A South Jersey woman has rescued 11 dogs, 20 goats, 15 horses, a skunk, 2 llamas, and 600 other animals

“Everybody loves this rooster,” Zaleski said in a phone interview Sunday, the phone being held up to her ear by a volunteer while she milked some goats. “He’s such a fan favorite. People are always joking, ‘We can stick him in our jacket, or in our purse.’ He’s like a kitten. He’s always around.”

When Squiggy was last seen, Zaleski said, it was a very busy visiting day. “We do not think a predator got him as he hung out mostly by the stage area where there were lots of people,” the farm wrote in a Facebook post, shared by about 1,300 people as of Sunday. “We are reviewing all of the Funny Farm Rescue camera footage from that day.”

Although Zaleski has about 115 other roosters on the farm, Squiggy was the star and was not available for adoption (there’s also concern about avian flu currently). And although it is a truism about the farm that anyone used to having dogs on leashes and pets fenced in can feel disoriented seeing all the animals walking around without restraints, Zaleski says they’ve never had an animal run away from the 25-acre farm.

“The gate’s open,” Zaleski said in a March interview. “People are like, ‘Don’t they leave?’ And I said, ‘If you’re an animal, would you go? Who would leave?’”

On Sunday, Zaleski reiterated that it is highly unlikely that Squiggy chose to make a go of it on his own by setting out along Railroad Boulevard in Mays Landing.

“He doesn’t go anywhere,” she said. “He crows all the time. He hasn’t gone anywhere in the two years we’ve had him.”

Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Squiggy is asked to call or text Zaleski at 609-742-9410.