Chicken infested with tiny white worms

[casportpony]

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[casportpony]

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[casportpony]

More:




-Kathy

 

[Mf3500]

Do you think it was the maggots that split her skin? She was still alive when I seen this?

 

[casportpony]

Do you think it was the maggots that split her skin? She was still alive when I seen this?

Is there any chance she was attacked by an animal? If not, the maggots the maggots did it.

-Kathy

 

[Mf3500]

No animals. How awful. Didn't realize they could do that much damage. 3rd year for chickens never ever have dealt with these problems.

 

[Rowsdower]

Maggots will definitely split the skin. But to be fair, maggots generally only eat decaying flesh. I suspect the maggots are secondary to whatever you had going on before, peritonitis perhaps.

 

[enola]

Any chicken with a wound, with poopy feathers or actually any dirty, moist feathers are prime suspects for fly strike. The maggots hatch, crawl right through the wound (or vent) of the chicken and eat the chicken alive:

Round worms look like spaghetti, as Kathy's great pictures show. Maggots are a lot smaller, pointed on one end and blunt on the other.

 

[casportpony]

No animals. How awful. Didn't realize they could do that much damage. 3rd year for chickens never ever have dealt with these problems.

It's happened to me, too, so don't beat yourself up. Instead, learn from this and do a thorough exam on the rest of your chickens.

-Kathy

 

[enola]

Maggots will definitely split the skin.  But to be fair, maggots generally only eat decaying flesh.  I suspect the maggots are secondary to whatever you had going on before, peritonitis perhaps.

Maggots eat the decaying flesh, then they will eat the 'healthy' flesh. The will not leave the 'host' to go find another source of food.

Any hen that has a dirty vent, needs to be cleaned ASAP!