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The 3 in question are the light head ones.
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UGH. I thought we were finally heading for Fall, and away from all the dangers of spring and summer. But we've had a TON of rain lately and that resulted in a fly boom. I noticed my one hen acting strange yesterday, I thought she looked egg bound, so I lifted her tail up to see what was going on. I was NOT expecting a withering mess of maggots... alas, she has flystrike. I immediately brought her in for a bath to wash the worst of it off, then got tweezers to pull the rest out. They created a few small tunnels between her skin and thigh. I cannot reach far enough into the one hole to get those maggots out. After hours of digging, and flushing the wound with saline solution (only thing I had on hand), I had to call it a night. Surprisingly she is still alive but I fear those maggots I could not get will only keep burrowing deeper. Long story but..... WHAT DO I DO???? :hit
 
BullChick said:
Won’t bleach water AT A SAFE LEVEL FOR THE HEN kill them?
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I don't know. I tried putting them in rubbing alcohol after pulling them out of her and it still took them a while to die. I was too afraid to put anything stronger than saline solution in her wound. I tried drowning them in the saline solution by filling the hole but it didn't work.
 
I got some vetericyn spray and sprayed her wound, pulled out another 15-20 maggots. A lot less than yesterday. I'm hoping if I keep doing this every night for the next few weeks, until her wound is healed up, she should be fine? I'm still unsure about the maggots I can't reach. If anyone has any input, that would be great, thank you! Oh and we also checked the rest of the chickens and nobody else has fly-strike. Wonder why it's just this one hen.
 
She is probably the only one who had an open wound when the conditions were right. Maggots only eat the dead tissue so once everything is cleaned and healing they should be going away also. Just prevent any further fly access and continue the regular cleaning and see how she does.
Believe it or not maggots are used to promote wound healing in many areas by medical specialists, they can be beneficial even if they are horrible to look at.
 
fisherlady said:
She is probably the only one who had an open wound when the conditions were right. Maggots only eat the dead tissue so once everything is cleaned and healing they should be going away also. Just prevent any further fly access and continue the regular cleaning and see how she does.
Believe it or not maggots are used to promote wound healing in many areas by medical specialists, they can be beneficial even if they are horrible to look at.
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I thought so too, but when I did my research on fly-strike, I learned that maggots will eat live tissue as well! My chicken has a too perfect round wound and a bunch of little tunnels that the maggots created. Yesterday I pulled 3 out of a new tunnel they were creating into her live skin. The maggots can eat a chicken alive if not caught fast enough. I'm surprised nobody here has any idea what I'm talking about.
 

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