"The lack of animals in the Fable franchise is always something that has bothered me," Lionhead's Lead Artist, John McCormack, told Beauty of Games in a recent interview.

"The problem is trying to convince an entire animation/AI team to spend their resources away from things like combat, cutscenes, expressions, gestures, simulation etc and work on the new badger we’ve just built," he jokes. "As you can imagine, the priority drops somewhat for these things and often don’t make the final cut."

That all may change in Fable III though the Lead Artist told the site.

"In Fable III, so far we’ve built bats, crows, rabbits, ducks, robins, vultures, lizards, rats, butterflies, moths, insect swarms, dogs, fireflies, geese and we even started on a cow... whether or not these will make it into the final game is anyone's guess at this point."

I have to agree, Fable would definitely be a better place with more local wildlife. It doesn't take too long before you get bored of punting those helpless chickens about does it?