No, UCT is not in the business of developing four-legged chickens for supermarket shelves, as reported in the community newspapers last week.

The story was just a little bit of the traditional light-hearted fun that newspapers indulge in to mark April Fools' Day.

Littered with tell-tale puns, the story claimed that a Professor Al Bumen, attached to UCT, led the team which made the breakthrough. Raymond de Cock of Pick 'n Pay was upbeat about the product, but Laetitia van der Nest of the chicken right's organisation, Claws, "cried fowl".

Reportedly, Professor Bumen's "cock-a-hoop, free-range team at UCT" were in line for a Pullet-zer Prize, while residents near Newlands might have been curious about the whereabouts of an experimental farm behind Kirstenbosch where 1 000 quadruped chickens were allegedly being raised.

Dave Hill, editor of Community Newspapers, telephoned the Monday Paper to alert us to the spoof so that we could reassure anyone who might have fallen foul of the joke.