The 18-month-old egg-laying chickens have come to the end of their usefulness for a commercial egg producer and were destined to be slaughtered. That was before the Brighton Animal Centre stepped in.

The flock is being kept at a holding site while staff at the Patcham Animal Centre work flat out to find new homes for them.

Patcham animal care assistant Diane Grout said: "We have been organising chicken rescues for the past four years.

"These hens are destined for slaughter at 18 months when hens come to the end of their most productive period for laying eggs – after that they tend to moult and then produce slightly less but, in some cases, larger eggs.

"We have established a good relationship with a local poultry farmer who allows us to have as many hens as we can find suitable homes for.

"We have discovered from past appeals that it is better to tell people we have hens available and then we can arrange for them to collect them and this is because we feel that the birds settle better if they are rehomed quickly."