BERLIN, Germany (Reuters):

Three hundred chickens died in panic early yesterday when a drunken German teenager on a joyride crashed a van into their shed, police said.

"Apparently, some of the chickens were so desperate to get away that they ran into the wall and died," the spokesman said. "Others suffered heart attacks."

The 17-year-old from the western city of Kassel crashed the van through the wall of a shed containing around 1,000 birds and then returned to a nearby fairground where he was staying, according to a spokesman for the local police. The youth was arrested.