The Prince of Wales raised a few laughs at the South of England show when he mistook a cockerel for a hen.

Prince Charles asked Mary Cogram, 71, a committee member of the Arun Valley Poultry Fanciers' Society, whether the chicken she was holding was a good egg-layer.

"Not this one," she said. "It's a cockerel."

The Prince made the gaffe yesterday during a three-hour tour of the show at Ardingly, near Haywards Heath.

He displayed his support for agriculture on the lapel of his grey suit.

It bore badges including one from the Sussex Cattle Society of which he is patron and one for his own organic farm, Duchy Home Farm near Highgrove, Gloucestershire.

He also sported a Sussex Society tie which was green with a cow motif.

He was led around the fur and feathers marquee by Sylvia Brown, grandmother and secretary of the Arun Valley Poultry Fanciers' Society.

Mrs Brown, 69, said: "He talked to everybody."

Her daughter Jan Pannell, 38, said: "He was wonderful with the children. They were dancing round him like he was the Pied Piper."

The society, based in Worthing, was formed 26 years ago and is run by Mrs Brown and her family.

The Prince went on to meet members of the Worthing and District Animal Rescue Society and he was introduced to a rescued Buff Orpington cock called Major and a lop-eared rabbit, named after the Prince's great grandfather Albert, because it was found abandoned in Victoria Road.

A row of children holding ducks and chicks greeted the Prince.

Chloe Bishop, 11, from Worthing, was holding Edwina, a white call duck which had starred on the Channel 4 show The Big Breakfast.

In the Abergavenny Cattle building, the Prince met Fisher Victorious, a Hereford winner of the super beef bull competition, and super cow Fabiola, a black and white Holstein.

Farmer Michael Carr, of Coombe Farm Dairies, owner of Fabiola, said: "We talked about his last visit to the show in 1986 when he met my father, Tom Carr, who passed away this year.

"The cow my father had next to him coughed all over the Prince."

The Prince tasted three glasses of locally-made wine with cheese, including a Dew Pond semi-soft cheese made by Tom Ventham, 38, of Old Plawhatch Farm, in Forest Row, near East Grinstead.

Mr Ventham said: "He is patron of the British Cheesemakers' Society so he knows a thing or two about cheese."

Lucinda Dutton-Cox, who works at Plumpton Vineyard at Plumpton College, said: "I offered him a glass of our white Bacchus wine, made by the students at the college. He seemed to enjoy it."

Seven-year-old Sam Marsh, from Battle, presented the Prince with a posy made by flower arrangers at the show.

Simon Horton, 13, of Lower Dicker, visiting the show with friends from St Bedes in Eastbourne, got past bodyguards to give the Prince a hug.

He said: "We were really surprised to meet him. I asked him if I could have a hug and he laughed so I just went ahead and hugged him."

The Prince finished off his tour by presenting prizes to the top cattle. Then he broke ranks to speak to members of the public.

Terry Banks, 58, from Lewes, said: "He was surprisingly ordinary and down to earth."

Earlier in the day, Prince Charles toured Chichester Cathedral and visited St Mary's Hospital almshouses in Chichester, which are linked to the cathedral and thought to be the oldest in Britain.