Grey worms on newborn chick just out of the egg.

[Fiffa]

Hi all,

Had a very interesting morning this morning. I have a hen that's been sitting on eggs and they have finally started hatching. Good news right, yes at least until this morning. I went out to check on her and saw a chick just starting to break open its shell. I decided to help the chick out of the shell. Immediately after the chick came out I noticed a bunch of eighth of an inch grey worms crawling on the freshly born Chick. I tried to rinse them off the chick but there were so many. as I looked closer, I mean really close these things were small, I noticed that there was a hole in this little guy and there were even tinier worms moving around inside of the hole. Now let me explain this carefully. The worm like things were on this guy INSIDE of the egg before it ever came out. I have seen nothing like it on any other chick. I chose to dispatch the infected guy in hopes of quarantining the infestation as I have other newborn chicks which do not have these worms and I do not want them to spread. Does anyone know what this is and how to stop it? How does a chick get parasites inside the egg? Can this spread to the adult chickens or other animals I have like rabbits dogs and cats? I also have a 6 week old son. Could he become infected by these? PLEASE HELP I want to stop this immediately before my animals, already being devastated by predators, start dying off.

 

[dawg53]

Welcome to BYC. Those were maggots, not worms. Apparently there was a crack in the shell somewhere, or feces in the nest containing fly eggs. The eggs hatched and the maggots worked their way into the cracked shell.

 

[Fiffa]

They did not look like maggots that I've seen before. They moved very worm like. The ones in the open wound were almost not visible to the eye. After work I plan to investigate further.

 

[Toddrick]

Very interesting!

 

[dawg53]

Poultry worms mainly infect the innards, suck blood/absorbing nutrients. Worms cannot survive outside the host, period.

 

[Bubbix65]

I had a chick hatching last night this morning I went and it was still in the shell when I opened the shell there was a 1/2 “ brown worn on her butt.
A different one hatched a few days earlier she seems fine.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

It would be so much easier to diagnose if we had pictures.

 

[Kiki]

I had a chick hatching last night this morning I went and it was still in the shell when I opened the shell there was a 1/2 “ brown worn on her butt.
A different one hatched a few days earlier she seems fine.

It was probably intestines. Can you post a pic?

 

[Susan Skylark]

Certainly sounds like maggots, perhaps a fly species you are unfamiliar with? At least they aren’t contagious.