DR Doolittle may have wanted to talk to the animals – but he never guessed they might have actually chatted among themselves.

Well, they do in Kingsteignton. Just ask Flopsy the Bunny and her pals Norah and Shadow – a pair of language-teaching chickens.

The unlikely bedfellows live together in Michael Jackson-like perfect harmony at the Sandygate Mill home of Alison Ewers.

She was blissfully ignorant of her pets' communicative skills until she had to take Flopsy to the vet for some treatment in an area of her anatomy where the sun doesn't shine.

But it's what came out of her rabbit's other end – the speaking part – which dumbfounded her carers.

Helen Bull, principal vet at the Mole Valley Practice, Heathfield, was taken aback by her patient's ability to mimic chickens.