While secession wars are fought for liberation, the insurgents rarely represent freedom for chickens.

But the conflict in eastern Ukraine has brought about a great chicken escape at a poultry farm in the Luhansk region, regional media reported.

The farm was abandoned after artillery shelling, with all the birds set loose, news website Informator.com.ua reported.

A video with the tongue-in-cheek title "the liberation of chickens from the Kiev junta" is available on YouTube, showing hundreds of the birds swarming the farmyard.

The fowl seem at a loss over their sudden freedom, getting under the wheels of the car from which the video is shot.

At one point, the chickens can be seen cannibalizing their dead.

The video, published Sunday, is credited to local pro-Russian insurgents, who can be heard commenting on the chicken liberation using exclusively shocked expletives.

It remained unclear how many Luhansk chickens turned free-range.

But the escape precipitated a price collapse at local poultry markets, where a chicken can now be had for a mere 10 Ukrainian hryvnas ($0.78), Informator.com.ua said.

The thriftier locals, meanwhile, are boosting their diet for free by collecting eggs that the birds are laying in the woodland areas they have populated, the website said Monday.