For the handsome five-month-old lives on a Knutsford farm with only female company to share.

But if it weren't for a broody hen with mixed-up hormones then Jarvis wouldn't be here at all.

He was a chick from a batch of five eggs given to Veryan Roxby to keep one of her 16 hens happy.

Nothing unusual in that except the hens are of the infertile egg-laying variety.

"She just sat on the nest all day," said Veryan. "I would move her off and she would just go back right again."

The surrogate mother took to the eggs and managed to hatch three - but the only male chick, Jarvis Cocker, survived.

"It will be this summer when he is fully grown," she said.

"He has started crowing now, but when he did, he looked terribly surprised."

In eight years of looking after hens Veryan has never come across the phenomenon - and it has inspired her bring some more breeders into the farm.

So with 16 hens, two bitches and two she cats, the lucky cockerel is still top of the rung - with no pecking order to worry about.

But even Veryan had to admit: "Sometimes he's a bit hen-pecked."

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