Colin the Cockerel is killed by fox attack
COLIN the Cockerel, the Ramsdean rooster served a noise abatement order by East Hampshire District Council, is dead.
A fox broke into a chicken coop belonging to Colin's owners, the Barton family, and massacred 12 of their chickens on Friday, June 11.
Colin was fatally injured trying to protect them and had to be killed.
The fox, believed to be a vixen, returned 45 minutes later and killed two hens which survived the initial attack.
The Barton's lost every one of their chickens in the attack.
Mum Lena was convinced the killings would have been prevented if EHDC had not forced them to move the coup away from their house earlier this year.
The council ordered the move to stop Colin's crowing waking up the neighbours in the mornings.
Lena said: "We have kept chickens for years and never had any problems with foxes before.
"But because we had to move them all around the back of the house by the stables, we did not hear a thing.
"It was awful, my husband Stephen was physically sick when he discovered the carnage. We had to get a neighbour to wring Colin's neck because he was dying."
The Bartons built a new enclosure for Colin and the chickens earlier this spring after neighbours complained of the noise he was making first thing in the morning.
As a consequence EHDC served a noise abatement order upon the Bartons, making them move the chickens away from the house.
Lena said: "We are quite bitter about it as they are our family pets.
"To see them ripped into pieces is not nice. It was terrible when I took my 11-year-old daughter up to make a fuss of what we thought were the two remaining chickens, only to find them both beheaded by a fox."
Despite the tragedy, the family intend to replace Colin and all the chickens soon.
"A friend of ours has a hen who is incubating some eggs for us," Lena said.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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