The Curious Incident of the bulge on the chicken in the Greenhouse

Today I bought live maggots and fed them to my chicken with the weird bulge…

Tatty Hattie, one of out exbatts arrived in November with a small bulge on her front. Didn’t really think much at the time as exbatts often arrive looking a bit worse for wear and to be honest, one eyed Aggie gained more of my sympathy at the time. However, this bulge doesn’t seem to have gone away, in fact it has grown and on certain days she would look like a buxom Maiden Aunt except the rest of her remains looking pitiful and scrawny whilst the others are feathering up and looking quite attractive. I made up my mind to keep a watchful eye on her today. This is an unfortunate phrase as my varifocals have been knocked recently and I am having a hard time getting one eye to “feel right”, but anyway, it has given me something to think about and I have momentarily stopped squinting and adjusting the frames at various intervals during the day….I digress…

I decided to go on my “chicken forum” (don’t mock) and do some research into bulges, impacted crops etc….it’s all there, I tell you! It appears that olive oil and live white (and they have to be white…not dyed or it looks like they are bleeding internally…a few hours later (ooh l’ve learned so much today…) maggots. The former helps to soften an impacted crop, the latter munch on the contents and help reduce it, assuming they haven’t been pecked and mashed first, by said beak…but some get through apparently.

So armed with this info, I march off to fishing supplies shop in town. Well, oh my word, I stood looking down into this open cabinet which contained 6 washing up bowls that were moving….well the contents were squirming.. Each bowl contained a different coloured breathing and mobile mass, I was memorised in a appalling way… A young lad offered to serve me with a grin on his face. I sounded confident, paid my half pint order and returned home with the knowledge that he had secured the bag tightly and I wouldn’t have live maggots crawling up my leg on my way home. I didn’t stop me looking to see “if the bag was moving though”.

So home I came, Hattie was separated into the greenhouse with everything she needed and I created my delicious porridge of oats, poultry spice, olive oil and maggots…yum. Well she evidently thought so because she went crazy for them, her little beady eye missing nothing and flicking her head back showering my face with the contents, which wasn’t a great experience.

Well she seems happy enough, although a lot smaller and frailer-looking than the others. She didn’t like me trying to feel bits and peep underneath her…oh the indignity of it all. It may be an impacted crop or it may be a tumour, I fear the latter, but she doesn’t seem bothered. The others ere beginning to peck her, so I think she is probably better off separated for now and we’ll see how she goes with a bit of individual attention…Meanwhile I am getting photos of her bulge for the forum to peruse…and the maggots are in a bag, within a bag, within a plastic container within the fridge…like a controlled drug behind many doors. I only hope no one ignores the fish stores bag and thinks “hmm what shall go in my sandwiches today” and can anyone tell me how long maggots stay as maggots before they become flies….in my fridge……