A BALDING feather pecked nuisance is making lives hell for two of our dogs. A chicken with no fear, no morals or scruples. Only a clear determination to steal what she wants with no thought of upsetting her victims.

Most of our hens regard the dogs with respect. Poultry expects to be chased without reason or cause, growled at randomly. None have ever had the temerity to steal the biscuits from the dogs' bowls or presume to eat any of the scraps that we put out for Pip and Fizz, after we have eaten a meal, before the dogs themselves.

Until recently. One hen has emerged as the Chicken's Champion. Fearless, courageous, foolhardy, as well, I tell myself. I would not entirely trust the dogs putting up with being hen pecked by a flea bitten bantie for much longer. Something may snap. And it could well be Pip's jaws.

Because in truth this particular bantam hen looks extremely disreputable; No feathers at all on her back. Which may be because she is moulting, or, salaciously, as a result of her attractiveness to a passing randy cockerel.

But to see Pip running with her tail between her legs, desperately trying to hang onto a piece of meat while a small, tatty looking hen chases her, is a novel sight in this farmyard.

The hen has not quite got to the point where she will jump into the back of the Landrover when Pip retreats there with her snack, but give that bantie time and she will.

Because already the porch and Fizz's dog cage hold no fears for this hen when foraging. Her scavenging seems to have stepped up a gear and she has clearly decided that she will no longer wait to scrat round for scraps, instead actively seeks out her next meal. In Fizz's biscuit bowl.

She may well be advised, however, not to push her luck. There is on the farm, a phantom chicken thief. One with no delicacy of taste. A virtual grave robber with an appetite for feathery corpses.

Recently, John and I have been deprived of the last couple of hours of our nightly kip by two noisy cockerels. Clearly considering themselves unassailable from foxes or other night time marauders, they both perched high up on the straw bales under the big barn, crowing their heads off from about 4am each day. It could not continue. And in fact came abruptly to an end when John necked the pair of them when they hopped down to ground level yesterday morning.

Both were hung up in the meal shed, to be plucked today for a chicken supper. You disturb John's beauty sleep at your peril round here. But neither were there. They had vanished off their hooks without a sign of a feather to mark their disappearance.

So be warned fearless little hen. You may view the farm dogs with scorn. Disrespect their kennels. Rob their biscuits. Feather peck their fur. There is something out there with a yearning for finger licking chicken. Either dead or alive.