maggots in vent

happyfeet

In the Brooder
12 Years
Dec 24, 2007
73
1
39
Had a Buff Orpington, about 11 months old, who started acting dumpy yesterday. Had oozy poop around vent feathers, washed off. She didnt want to move this morning. Went out to barn to check on her and she was dead. Cut her open and found about 3/4 cup of maggots pouring out of her vent. Vent looked old and worn out, pale flesh and very wrinkly, not normal. Could that have been what killed her? Could a fly lay eggs in the vent and cause illness. Maggots take much longer than 1 1/2 days to hatch, am I right??? To the best of my knowledge everything else looked normal. ????????? Any ideas???????
 
It's possible I had a slw a few years ago that had maggots by her vent eating her alive she ended up passing away due to being eating alive by maggots so I think is possible.
 
Flystrike usually precedes maggot infestation. If there is any wound, pecked area, open tissues or dirty tissue from poopy butt/vent, flies will lay eggs near or in those areas that develop and migrate inward because tissue starts to deteriorate about the times maggots start to hatch. I had that happen on a rescue dog who had a horrific-ly huge coat and got an unnoticed hot spot that had flystrike and the maggots were eating him alive!

So anytime you have warm weather and flies, always check your stock (hoofed or feathered) to make sure their poo/vent areas are clean and not harboring any type of fly temptation.
 
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Maybe it was healthy and a fly planted eggs there and the maggots ate the feces and as they grew blocked her up causing death??? However, it might be possible, it can't be very common or it would happen all the time. So more than likely something wasn't right and/or healthy down there and the maggots were eating dead flesh and she would've died anyway, but the maggots just got an early start.
 
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Thanks for the heads up! Will be checking booties tomorrow
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Darn flies!!
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Maybe I can talk DH into some scovies...they eat flies,right?
 
Our chickens are free range and do an amazing job at keeping fly egg population down completely. This is the first year that I haven't had to hang the fly bait bags, sprinkle the fly predators out on the manure piles (which would also be feeding the chooks!) and fly population had radically reduced! I know some folks can't free range so hanging fly bait bags works GREAT especially in warm weather (be careful, they are stinky if you are down wind of them) and if your chooks aren't free range, using the fly predator wasps works GREAT! We have hoofed livestock as well and so far, those free rangers are covering over 50 acres, cleaning up everything! Bless them!
 
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My vet said it only takes 12 hrs for maggots to hatch. So hen was probably already dead, but may have had something going on that attracted lots of flies to lay eggs on her prior to her death.
 

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