A DOCTOR slaughtered a cockerel which had been left in her garden by trespassers.

Kim Allen was woken up by noises, which she thought was a fox breaking into the coup where she keeps her two chickens Monica and Rachel.

The 35-year-old said: “I checked the coup but they were both asleep. I looked in the run and there was a cockerel.

“I couldn’t believe it.”

She added: “He was very loud the following morning. He started crowing at 4am.”

Mrs Allen of Arsenal Road, Eltham, contacted several online poultry groups, Woodlands Farm on Shooters Hill and the police but no-one would take him.

She said: “We couldn’t leave him with our chickens because we would end up with more chickens so we had to slaughter him.”

Mrs Allen, who lives with her husband Chris, added: “We humanly slaughtered him following guidelines from the Humane Slaughter Association.

“You have to dislocate the cockerel’s neck and chop its head off. It’s very quick.”

The couple believe someone got on to their property through their neighbour’s garden, which has access to the street.

Owner of Retreat Animal Rescue, Neil Davis, says he would never have turned the cockerel away.

Mr Davis, who runs the retreat in Daltons Road, Crockenhill, said: “There would never be a need to kill it. She should have tried a bit harder to find us.

“The RSPCA would have directed her to someone who would have taken it.”

An RSPCA spokeswoman said: “The RSPCA would always encourage anyone concerned about an abandoned animal to call its national control centre on 0300 123 4999 for advice.”