Fowl With Chicken Parts In Its Belly

The normal thing is for a hen to lay eggs which are then hatched to produce chicks, but fear and panic gripped the household of Madam Comfort Gyasi, when a fowl she had bought to prepare a meal turned out to have parts of another chicken in its belly. The incident turned the Agege-Accra resident of Madam Comfort into a� tourist� attraction killing the appetite of the family instantly. The hen, which was bought last Sunday and slaughtered on Wednesday to prepare a sumptuous soup for the family, turned out to have been impregnated with the parts of another chicken which looked like pork in the belly of the fowl. The parts included two wings, two necks, two thighs and two other bottoms of a fowl, but the skin looked very much like that of pork. At about 10 am Wednesday, when the daughter of the woman had killed the fowl and was dressing it to prepare the soup, she found a sac with a structure of a smaller fowl in the intestines of the fowl. Sarah, the woman�s daughter, then thought it was just some oily parts of the fowl so she tried pulling it out, only to realise that it was the parts of another fowl in the sac. According to Madam Gyasi, when the fowl was bought on Sunday, it looked very healthy. "The only strange thing it did was that it refused to drink the water I gave to it, and used it used to stare at me for a long time", she told graphic.com.gh. The fowl, which was bought at GHC17 at the Mamprobi Plaza near Korle Bu in Accra, was returned to the seller, who told Madam Gyasi that it was the eggs in the fowl that had developed into the "mystery". Not knowing what to do with the strange chicken, Madam Gyasi went home and burnt the whole fowl, believing it had some spiritual connotation. When contacted, the Director of the Veterinary Services Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr E.A Mark-Hansen, said although it was strange for that to be, it was also normal, as it could also be possible due to some pathological changes that could occur in a fowl. He, however, stated that it would have been best if samples of what was found in the chicken were brought to the Veterinary services for a laboratory test to be run to find the exact cause. According to Dr Mark-Hansen, bacterial or fungal could cause such a problem, but it was strange for a fowl to develop those kind of parts inside it. �If the fowl was brought here we would have run a test to know the cause, and to advise the farmer or whoever the fowl was bought from to know the type of feed or drugs to give to the birds�, he said. Dr Mark-Hansen advised all poultry farmers to regularly take the birds or fowls on their farms to the veterinary clinic for periodic lab tests to be run on them, in order for the farmers to be advised on what type of feed and drugs to give to the birds. That, he said, would not allow other birds or fowls to be infected, and many lives would be saved as well.