At least this is what Abbi Vincent-Lloyd is claiming as a result of losing 30 hens on the days that the hot-air balloons overflew her property. She says that stress of seeing the enormous balloons overhead sends them running for cover during which they bump headlong into other chickens doing the same thing and this causes the eggs inside them to explode.

This in turn causes an infection, which is what is thought to have killed scores of them. As she told The Daily Mail

Miss Vincent-Lloyd, 32, said post mortems of the animals revealed they had died from peritonitis, developed from the egg being released inside them.

She said: “I had lost about 15 birds when I decided to have the vet do a post mortem on two of them.

“I told the vet about the hot-air balloons and jets flying low over the farm and straight away he said that was the cause.

“As soon as the gas is released to raise the balloon they go absolutely crazy.

“It is absolute chaos, when they go into anything and that causes the egg to explode inside them.

“The fragments of the egg and its contents then infect them and then they die from it – it’s a horrible way to go.”

[via Mona on FriendFeed]

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