Three-legged chickens are the butt of many a joke, but it was no laughing matter when this hen was abandoned outside an animal rescue centre.

The plucky young chicken was found boxed up in a cardboard box at the gates of Sussex Horse Rescue Centre in Uckfield last week.

Rescuer Pauline Grant has tried to introduce the hen to other birds at the sanctuary, but she said the bird had been badly bullied.

She said: "The leg just hangs down and it doesn't seem bothered by it, but the other hens keep pecking it.

"We're going to have the leg removed by a vet, because it's of no use and it's just making the bird a target."