Life in a quiet Norfolk village has been turned upside down by an invasion of feral chickens – or at least that’s how some locals describe the situation.
Around 100 of the wildfowl have colonised a lane in Snettisham, where one resident says life is now ‘hell’.
The winged terrors allegedly begin clucking at 4am and have no qualms breaking into people’s gardens and pecking through flowers and vegetable patches in search of food.
Tensions have flared between locals and outsiders who have been stopping to feed the chickens, attracting ‘sizeable’ rats and causing litter to pile up – with one repeat offender attracting verbal abuse in the street.
Rod Mackenzie, a parish councillor who lives on the road, said: ‘They’re a pain in the butt. If they come into your garden they dig everything up.
‘It’s not just food for the chickens, it’s every bit of detritus they can find and that brings rats.
‘What was it someone left the other week? A quart of pink prawns. The rats are quite sizeable around here and they breed like hell.’
The birds, which descend from escaped domesticated chickens, are thought to have lived in a woodland bordering the village for many years before recently expanding their territory.
Company director Ben King, 48, who also lives on the lane where the birds nest, said he has to wear earplugs to sleep at night.
He said: ‘They’re out of control now, there’s not just one or two. They’ve started coming into gardens and you get rats as well.
‘If someone came and moved them, I’d buy them a big beer.’
There are also divisions between those who want rid of the birds and others who say they add to Snettisham’s charm.
Graeme McQuade, 43, who has lived on the lane for 18 months after moving from Cambridge, said: ‘I have no issues with the chickens whatsoever.
‘Before we moved here, we didn’t know chickens get up at 4am, but it gives character to the place.’
Another dissenter, who did not wish to be named, suggested the issue was a classic case of NIMBYism fuelled by new-build owners.
‘People in the new houses are moaning about them but they’ve been here such a long time and there’s more important things going on in the world than a few chickens,’ the individual said. ‘They should get a life.’
‘Two of them have been in my garden since they were babies and they don’t bother me.
‘There’s a lady from Heacham that comes and feeds them and she’s had abuse.’
The matter was raised before Snettisham Parish Council, who were told there was ‘uncertainty’ over the ownership of the land where most of the chickens are nesting.
The minutes of its latest meeting state: ‘Councillors noted the concerns of residents local to the area with people dumping food waste for the chickens.
‘This was leaving foul-smelling waste and encouraging rats to the area,’ the minutes continue, adding that there was a potential ‘heath hazard’.
The powers-that-be decreed that warning signs shall be put up asking people not to feed the birds.
Specialists shall also be contacted for advice, presenting the opportunity of a lifetime for any experts on the behaviour of feral chickens in the British Isles should they be able to squeeze it into their presumably packed schedules.
Enquiries will be made as to vacancies at a chicken rehoming charity.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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