A group that rescues and rehomes battery hens has been targeted by burglars for the second time in five months.

Gates and fences were smashed on Monday night when around 15 cockerels were taken from Little Hen Rescue, based in Greenways Lane, Flordon.

Cash, medicine and chicken crates were also taken, but the founder of the centre is most concerned about the animals as she fears they may have been taken for fighting.

Jo Eglen said: 'We have been burgled. They've smashed gates of pens, taken animals and money and ransacked the place.

'The worst thing is that they have taken the animals, take anything but not the animals.

'It was awful this morning, all the feathers were everywhere, it must have been horrendous for them.'

Mrs Eglen said that around half of the cockerels were taken. She fears that because the strongest ones were targeted, together with transporting crates and medicine, they will be used for fighting. She added that their insurance did not cover the loss.

Other hens also got out because of the damage to the pens and fences, but they were retrieved.

In April about �150 cash was taken along with a petrol strimmer worth about �150, when units at the centre were targeted.

Little Hen Rescue is a volunteer-run not for profit organisation that was started in 2008.

It buys factory hens that are coming to the end of their commercial life from farmers to save them from slaughter and re-home them.

It can take up to 2,000 hens and chickens at one time, but Mrs Eglen said that fortunately they were not full as they had not been to rescue some from farms recently.

However, a planned visit by children from Harford Manor School to the centre today had to be cancelled. Work experience students from the school will return tomorrow.

•To provide a home for one or more of the hens email littlehenrescue@hotmail.com