An estimated 500,000 Brits have pet chickens

Have they gone henpeckin' crazy?

Are they utterly clucking mad? Vicky Mills, 24, and her 23-year-old husband Sam, from Cwmbran, South Wales, have taken out a £2,000 bank loan and scrimped for a year, even giving up their holidays, just to provide medical care for a three year-old called Lily.

And Lily is not their daughter. She is not even their pet dog. No, Lily is a chicken.

Specifically, she is a Rhode Island Red hen, who got her left leg trapped in a barbed-wire fence.

Her injuries were so severe, she had to have seven operations, culminating in an amputation - or perhaps that should be a 'carve-up', as we more normally call it when separating a chicken leg from the main carcass.

Lily was even treated for depression, brought on by her many operations.

But her owners insist that Lily deserved this special treatment.

"She's worth every penny," says Vicky. "I love her to bits and it would break my heart if anything happened to her."