A NOISY cockerel keeping neighbours awake at all hours could be the next target of a silencing order by Bradford Council.

Environmental Health officers have paid a visit to the offending bird's home in Heaton, to reason with its owner in a bid to keep it quiet and restore peace and harmony to the leafy residential area of Duchy Drive.

Talib Hussain, whose house in Wheatlands Square backs on to the garden where the cockerel and a chicken live, got so fed up of the feathered fiend's continual crowing from 4am until dusk that he rang Bradford Council desperate for help.

"It's a rented house so I spoke to the landlord but nothing happened so I had no option but to ring the council. It's non-stop crowing and it's driving us mad.

"It's been going on for about a month now. It's as bad as a barking dog. It just goes on and on," he said.

Mr Hussain, who is a kidney transplant patient and needs his rest, added: "It wakes us up at four in the morning, one of my sons doesn't get home until the early hours because he works in a restaurant. He can't sleep because of that bird.

"It's not fair this should be happening in an area like this. It's residential not farming. There should be rules.

"Environmental health have told me they have been to speak to the owner now and I'm hoping that will be the end of it and the cockerel goes. It's been a nuisance - no one would want to live next to it."

Steve Hartley Bradford Council's interim strategic director for environment and sport said: "We are aware of and are investigating this complaint about the cockerel. Where possible we try to resolve noise problems informally by contacting the owners of animals to see what can be done. However, if the noise continues we may need to take action under the Environmental Protection Act and serve a Noise Abatement Notice."

When the Telegraph & Argus spoke to the cockerel's owner who did not want to be named, she said: "I'm giving the cockerel back to where he came from but I'm keeping the chicken - she doesn't make any noise."