Staff at an animal farm near Chester have been left devastated after four turkeys were stolen from their enclosure overnight.
Thieves smashed their way into the calf pen at Hayrack Church Farm, in Thornton-le-Moors, in the early hours of Sunday (December 9) to get to the turkey enclosure, and resorted to cutting the wires in order to access the birds, before making off with them.
It's the first time staff had hatched turkeys at the family-run farm; they had done so purely for petting purposes - with the animals not meant for consumption.
Manager Lisa O'Neill told CheshireLive that staff were 'devastated' when they discovered the turkeys had gone when they arrived at work on Sunday morning.
"After having such a lovely start to December with lots of customers supporting us by visiting our grotto, we came in to find this," she said.
"They have damaged our calf pen and smashed into the turkey enclosure to take them. We are so upset as these turkeys were the first ones we had hatched at the farm and I don't know why anybody would want to steal them other than for Christmas but these are not eating turkeys as they are a breed that have no meat on them.
"We're in the middle of nowhere with no CCTV cameras so I don't think we'll get them back," added Lisa.
"The poor things must have been terrified and the calves too as the thieves tried to get through the enclosure. Luckily we have checked over the calves and they are OK."
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Staff say they have been overwhelmed with public support and kind offers from local people and businesses, some of whom have set up a Justgiving page to help them out.
"We've had so much support - including had offers to rebuild the damaged pen and one company even offered a discount on CCTV," said Lisa. "It does pick us up to carry on and not let these people win.
"We are a family run farm who keep our prices low and don't make any profit, so when anything happens to us we really feel it and we struggle, especially in the winter.
"We get no funding or grants and running the farm is our way of giving back to the community which this is part of the reason we are so disappointed - it is a blow for us.
"We have never needed CCTV before but unfortunately after this I feel like this is something we have to do now to protect the animals and stop this happening again," she explained.
"I'd just like to say to the public, please help by continuing to visit and support us - we are very closely involved with local communities, charities and schools and we rescue and rehome so many different animals. We want this to continue to be a lovely family place.
"And I hope that if the thieves are reading this, they might feel disappointed in themselves. All we can hope for is the turkeys are being looked after as we would look after them."
You can donate to the Justgiving page here.
