A PETITION is to be launched to help save a cockerel which has been banned from crowing after neighbours complained to the council.

Corky, the five-month-old Rhode Island Red rooster, who lives at the Harp pub in East Peckham, had been warned by Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council to keep the noise down after his early morning wake-up calls had ruffled feathers in the village.

His owner, Peter Palmer, the pub landlord, received a letter asking him to keep Corky quiet in the early mornings.

Following a report on Corky's plight in last week's Kent Messenger, letters, messages of support and telephone calls have flooded in to Mr Palmer.

Corky has also posed for filming, appeared on national television and had his story discussed on Canadian radio.

Following such an overwhelming response, Mr Palmer also plans to circulate a petition for residents to pledge their support for Corky.

He said: "Everyone in the village has been so supportive and it has been incredible how much response we have had. Corky has gone international.

"Everyone keeps saying to me they can't believe that we are living in the country and yet somebody is complaining about the noise from a cockerel.

"No-one can believe that I have to try and stop him ‘cocka-doddle-dooing’. I have heard him once in the morning, although he still lets rip in the middle of the afternoon, but there's not a problem with that."

Mr Palmer said several letters he had received, including one from an 81-year-old woman who had included a picture she had drawn herself, had suggested other ways to house Corky overnight to contain his crowing.

Residents have offered to help circulate the petition around the village, with the aim of handing it to Tonbridge and Malling Council in support of Corky.