HELP MAGGOTS or WROMS

[Kim95037]

Anyone, there is a sore on my chickens butt, I thought she was egg bound but I got the flashlight out and there are little worms crawling around on it and in it, I dont know what to do!!!

 

[cmchickens]

Are they maggots or worms? Maggots indicate dying flesh and need different treatment than worms, which are probably intestinal parasites coming out. Can you post a picture of what they look like?

 

[Kim95037]

Working on uploading.....

 

[Kim95037]

Down toward the bottom, all of those little dots are the heads and you can see one trying to crawl out a little to the left.

 

[Kim95037]

Im taking her to the chicken vet first thing in the morning, I dont even think I will be able to sleep tonight. I just want to know if there is something I can do in the mean time.

 

[Kim95037]

I mean down toward the bottom of the sore, the sore is in the middle of the picture

 

[cmchickens]

You need to try to get them off. Use a bit of gentle soap and warm water to wash her. Rinse with lots of warm water. The quicker you remove them, the less damage they will do. After you rinse, check for more eggs. If you don't see any, apply some antibiotic ointment or Blu Kote or whatever you have. The sore doesn't look bad, but fly strike is no good.

 

[Kim95037]

Well I took Tilda in to my chicken vet today, she is going to spend the night and should hopefully be ok. She said I caught it early, which I was surprised, I figured I was way late on that one. Anyway hopefully I can bring her home tomorrow. I bought some of that screw worm spray to have on hand at the Tractor Store today ( I love that place ).

 

[DylansMom]

Glad to hear she is going to be okay. We have a very old pet turkey and earlier this summer she went thru a similar situation, only I didn't catch it early. We think she cut her breast on a piece if wire and gave herself a 4" long gash that went thru the skin and fat layer underneath, but didn't get into the muscle thankfully. When I discovered the wound which was completely hidden by her wing it was huge, black and crawling with maggots, it smelled of rotten flesh as well. DH thought we should put her down, but DS wanted to try to save her so we decided to try. It is impossible to pick all those maggots out so after some online research I decided to apply Swat wound dressing( usually used on horses), it was an act of desperation as I wasn't sure about using it on poultry. Worked like nothing I've ever seen, the maggots were backing out of the flesh and throwing themselves off of her. She was maggot free in less than 24 hrs. I would recommend Swat for anyone who finds a wound with maggots, I will be keeping it on hand incase we have this happen to any of our other birds. We cleaned her wound with iodine, debrided the dead skin, and applied the iodine and Trip. ant. oint., on alternating days for about 3 weeks we also gave her oral antibiotics for 2 weeks and she has recovered completely. This old girl is close to 40lbs. and 9 years old.. the nearest bird vet is 1.5 hours away, so it was not really an option for us to get her to a vet, online research saved her life.

 

[Kim95037]

The vet just called me minutes ago Tilda had a seizure and passed away. I was just getting ready to go and pick her up.
That's so cool you saved your turkey. The internet is awesome isn't it?
I had a chicken that ate three screws. It was on a weekend so I talked my neighbors into helping me 'operarate' on her. I opened up the crop and got the screws out. She healed up just fine and then she turned into a he and I had to find a home for her.