IT could have been a scene straight out of the hit animated film Chicken Run.

In a daring attempt to escape the chop, four battery hens and a cockerel fled from the back of a lorry taking them to an abattoir.

Just like the Nick Park movie, itself a parody of the classic prison break film The Great Escape, the poultry made their bid for freedom late at night under cover of darkness.

And just like the film, which starred Mel Gibson as cocky rooster Rocky, this tale has a happy ending.

Street wardens patrolling the area found the birds clucking and pecking around and thought they had escaped from the nearby Deane School Farm.

Poultry enthusiast and Deane School teacher Fred Tyldesley was alerted and collected them. Then he set about looking for a new owner.

Mr Tyldesley said: "You could say they have gone on a chicken run.

"They have had quite a lucky escape from a truck which definitely was taking them to be slaughtered."

He added: "They are clearly the type of birds used to lay about 300 eggs over a year, then destroyed and often used for fast food.

"Instead of letting them stop laying and regrow their feathers which takes about eight weeks, companies just get rid of them and buy more in." The lucky quartet have now been happily rehoused in conditions much more lavish than they were used to.

New owner, Maureen Schofield has taken them into her home and is nursing them back to health. She said: "I already have a similar hen who is called Duracell so he was delighted because they can keep him company and he won't be lonely any more. I was happy to take them because no one wants them and they would have to be killed if they could not live here."

She added: "I have called the cock Rocky after the film Chicken Run -- and one of the hens Mel." Mrs Schofield teaches English to foreign students at Deane School.

She specialises in taking in stray animals who have nowhere else to go. She has already taken in budgies, dogs and parakeets and in the past she has looked after ducks.