Town where hens ruled the roost: Police swoop to round up feathered gang who caused chaos for three years

* Chickens rehoused four miles away from village
Dawn breaks in Abington Drive and, for a moment, all is quiet.Suddenly a rustling in the undergrowth breaks the silence. Then a clucking sound. (More like a bwwaaawk! To be precise). Then another. Then another.By 4am the whole street is alive to the sound of chickens. Chickens in the road…chickens in back gardens… chickens clambering over parked cars and spattering them with chicken poo.

At one stage there were 50. For residents of this once peaceful suburban idyll, it became a living nightmare.They called them the Wild Bunch. Locals were woken daily by the 4am cacophony and had to pick a path through clusters of marauding chickens whenever they ventured out. Needless to say, feathers were ruffled in Banks, near Southport, Lancashire, where the poshest houses cost £400,000 and upwards. There was only one thing for it. They called in the Chicken Police.Yesterday the 50-strong gang of hens and roosters that inflicted daily misery for the last three years had been rounded up and relocated – thanks to Lancashire Constabulary’s wildlife officer Mark Thomas and a team of helpers.

They corralled the chickens and transported them to farmland four miles away. Now they can free range without disturbing anyone.
The poultry parade started when a rooster was abandoned by someone after moving out of the area. What was a poor boy supposed to do but find a few girls and start a family? Soon, the clan had multiplied to the extent that food was becoming scarce. The chickens moved into gardens to scavenge bird seed, peck scraps and accept titbits from kindly benefactors. No-one knew then that they were about to be over-run by the chickens from Hell.‘They travelled around like a pack,’ said Daniel Hoskin, 48. ‘They’d start crowing at 4am. They were always strutting around like they owned the place.’

Another neighbour said: ‘We’re very relieved those birds have gone. They were always running wild and causing a nuisance. The amount of mess they kept leaving was awful.’ So was the dawn swoop successful? Yesterday it emerged that chickens were still running wild in the area…some with chicks. Stand by for Chicken Run II.






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