Hen rustlers target rare breeds

A Shropshire man has fallen victim to a new rural crime wave - hen rustling. Nigel Cank, from Whixall, had 150 of his 200 rare-breed poultry stolen in one night.

With the price of the hens soaring, owners say they are being targeted by organised criminals who steal in large numbers and possibly to order.

Mr Cank, 52, said he thought the rise in hen thefts had come as a result of a drop in hen breeding.

He said this was because of diseases like bird flu and a rise in popularity of rare-breed hens because of television programmes fronted by celebrity chefs.

The lack of hens and the rise in popularity had pushed prices up, he said.

The retired gas engineer said the birds, from about 13 rare breeds, would have fetched about £2,000 on the open market.

"I've always kept chickens all my life really, since I was about 12," he said.

"The price of these birds has been going up. Because of the TV programmes, thousands of people who never kept poultry have started to do so - hens have become trendy.

"Over the years they've not been worth much really. What's happened now with television programmes coming and because of bird flu a lot of people didn't breed."

Mr Cank said another poultry farm across the border in Cheshire had about 200 laying hens stolen from their sheds at about the same time as his hens went missing.

A spokeswoman for the Poultry Club of Great Britain, which has about 1,200 members, said: "We have heard of several such incidents involving our members.

"Some of these breeders have been building up their stock over a lifetime and to lose them in a night is awful."

By Deborah Collins