Young vandals who broke into a children’s nursery twice in one week damaged toys and appeared to kick a pet chicken.

A group of youngsters – thought to be as young as 10 – were caught on CCTV climbing over the back wall into the garden of Kids Inc, in Gravesend, at around 10pm on Thursday (August 24).

Nursery manager Hayley Jones said she came into work at the Rochester Road branch the next morning and saw toys and children’s trikes strewn across the lawn and other items had been tipped over.

CCTV footage showed the boys running around, throwing things down the slide, and opening the chicken coop, letting the birds out. One also appeared to go in and kick one of them.

She added: “They have just destroyed resources. When you walk in knowing you left it tidy and come in ready for a new day and see it has been destroyed is quite upsetting and frustrating.

“You can clearly see it is a children’s nursery. It is annoying they think they can come in and damage property.

“When I watched the CCTV, I just thought what is the point? It is just pointless vandalism. It is a lot of stress and upset.

“I do not think they realise the repercussions their actions have had.”

Hayley, who has been the manager at the branch since May, said staff also found three of the chickens dead in the garden and two are still missing.

“The children loved the chickens and being involved with them,” she added. “They have been asking about what has happened to them and we are giving them lots of reassurance and suitable age-appropriate explanations.

“Our nursery children, families and staff team are very upset about what has happened, the loss of their five chickens and the lack of respect that these youths have shown towards our property and our children’s play area.”

The youngsters also broke into the garden on Tuesday (August 29) at around 11pm and broke multiple CCTV cameras.

The nursery, which opened last year, has not had any problems like this before.

The two incidents have been reported to police who have been asked for further information.