POLICE suspect fowl play after a spate of chicken-tipping left two villages overrun by abandoned poultry.

Residents of two villages awoke to find scores of scrawny chickens clucking and scratching around their gardens.

Residents in Greenhaugh, Northumberland, opened their curtains to find about 70 chickens.

A similar number were found in Kielder, a few miles away.

With 140 birds suddenly arriving, apparently out of thin air, some villagers were quick to take advantage and rounded up one or two for the pot.

There was a casualty however. Farmer Alastair Murray's ageing cockerel, Robert, found the influx of hens too much to deal with and was found dead, presumably from exhaustion.

At first, it was thought animal rights activists, flushed with triumph after killing off fox hunting, might have become the chicken liberation front.

But farmers believe the influx may be connected to the fact Defra has introduced a charge for the destruction of battery chickens that are past their sell by date.

Rather than pay the fee, unscrupulous egg producers may be turning loose the worn-out fowl.

Tim Morris, 45, landlord of the Hollybush pub, in Greenhaugh, said: "There were chickens everywhere. It was like something out of Chicken Run."