Please! HELP! Im in tears! Duck with lots of MAGGOTS!

[StopDropRollChic]

I went outside to see "Duck" today and I thought he had layed in his own feces over by the corner which he likes to shade(he poops alot there), but NO! I took a closer look and it was THOUSANDS of maggots and little blood worms and all things crawly!

His skin is bloody, black and scabby in some places, its mostly under his wings, on his back, crawling up to the back part of the beginning of his neck at the bottom, and on his sides..what is it? I spent hours just scrubbing away and power washing the poor guy...when I say he had thousands of maggots..I littlery mean THOUSANDS... What can I do? I think I have most of them gone.. Id say about 80%...what is this?
Please Help! Thanks so much!

 

[angelmarie]

take him to the feed store or vet. asap! although they look like bloodworms they are most likely parasites, bloodworms are in the same family of parasites. get him away from the elements, and put him in a nice clean environment, go the the store tell them what happened, and they'll know what to give you, oh and also put some neosporin on his wounds, and make sure none of your other animals have it too. Godd luck, and keep updating!

 

[krissibrock21]

peroxide should kill the remaining worms!!!! then put an antibiotic ointment on it.....

 

[Cuban Longtails]

Here's a thread about a chicken that had a wound infested with maggots.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=56316

Hope you can glean some helpful information off of it. Please do not use peroxide as it will kill healthy flesh. Your duck probably has some sort of infection that weakened it and the flies took advantage of it. You can use a saline solution to aggitate the maggots out of the duck's body.

 

[MissPrissy]

peroxide will cause damage to his skin. Wash the area warm warm soapy water. using a tweezer remove as many of the maggots as possible. It will take some time. Clean him up, dress the wounds with neosporin. Keep him quiet and dry and warm with plenty of food and water available. Don't let him play in the water.

If you have a vet that will see a duck by all means contact him. Many vets won't see chickens and ducks and geese.

Let's get terrielacy over here for some added help.

 

[StopDropRollChic]

Thank you all so much for your help! Unfortunatley there arent any vets around here that will see fowl. I will take pictures when I find my camera.

 

[DuckLady]

The link above is the best resource.

Bring the duck in. Do not use peroxide and don't cover the wounds with anything. You should put the duck in a clean box, using old towels so that you can change them often and wash them so that flies or maggots don't hide in straw or shavings.
You will have to keep tweezing and cleaning until the maggots are gone. Likely there was some injury and the maggots infested it. THis will take dedication on your part. You need to make sure you are cleaning every couple of hours. Use a bottle of saline, like for contacts and squirt hard to loosen the maggots. Use soap and warm water as the only thing to clean.
Again, peroxide will kill healthy tissue and covering with neosporin will entrap the maggots in the wound so they continue to feed. Neosprin can be applied after all the maggots are gone.

Maggots will not help clean the wound so don't leave them at all. The ones used for wound cleaning are sterile and I assure you tha ones on your duck are far from that.

Post pics when you can amd try to get them as clear as possible.

Keep us posted and good luck.

 

[StopDropRollChic]

Here are the pics..some are blurry Sorry!..now imagine hearing all of the ickies on these black parts!!

 

[1ElvisFan]

I just went through this but not as bad as you are. All I did was bathe the hen daily, holding her rump under water to drown them. I added gentle hand soap or Epsom salt to the water, I checked and pulled off any maggots I found, keep it up for a couple weeks to get the new hatchlings. Use triple antibiotic ointment as that will smother them. Good luck, you're in for a long nasty couple of weeks.

 

[1ElvisFan]

Quote:
OMG that is SO gross!