I am horrified by this post I found on another forum. Repeat: I found this on another forum. This is not my goat. I've never heard of such a thing in all my life! What would cause such a thing? Were the flies attracted by the diarrhea, which had gone untreated and not been cleaned up? Or, did they cause the diarrhea?? And why did the flies do this? What can we all do to never have this happen, as I think I would surely barf...so disgusted! :( How should it be treated?
I moved my goats to a different area a few days ago and noticed my old nanny had the runs. I gave her some probiotic. Well yesterday evening she didn't come at feeding time,so I went to look for her. Her back end was covered in flies (dozens) and maggots (hundreds) and was real weak. I got her to the hose and washed her off and sprayed mouthwash all over her back end.
The flies are gone, but she continues to have maggots in her poop and they gather around her anus. I wash them off with peroxide and a few hours later there are more. The eggs are gone, so these are inside of her.
Any suggestions to kill them internally? I wormed her good with Ivomec. I was wondering if food grade diatomaceous earth in her food would work? Peroxide enema?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Replies
I said exactly the same thing when our little lamb got fly strike -- I'd heard the name before, but I had NO idea just how disgusting it was until I actually saw it! That's why I left your title up there and just added "fly strike." That term represents the ultimate understatement.
Patty Meyer said:
Awesome, Ladies! I was washing dishes this AM and thinking I really should get on here and see if I coiuld fix the title, since the HORENDOUS YUCK had an actual name (not reflective of how yucky it is, if you ask me) lol, so I'm glad you did this. :)
Good idea, Lisa! I added "fly strike" to the title.
Is there a way to name this discussion, fly strike? That way people can see the title and read the great information that has been shared and know what to look for and how to treat?
You can save it for the second edition. :) Thanks again for the wonderful experience you can share with us, and I definitely wish for you a fly strike free future! :)
We've had fly strike twice -- once in a newborn lamb and once in a turkey mama that was attacked by coyote before being chased off by our llamas. I wrote about the lamb incident here:
http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/change-in-plans.html
I would be a very happy woman if I NEVER saw another case of fly strike in my entire life. It is the most disgusting thing ever. I was lucky that a Shetland breeder I know is also a homicide investigator. She knows a lot about maggots. In spite of what this person thinks she is seeing, the maggots are not inside of the goat's rectum. (I thought they were in my lamb's vagina.) They have to have air to breathe, so they cannot be internal. They can go without air for longer than we can, but not long enough to actually live internally, which is why they keep re-emerging. As you see from my little lamb story, it can take a long time to pick them all out, but it can be done.
There is a commercial spray called Catron that I ultimately bought but then really got mad at myself for using with the turkey because as the maggots started falling off of her, her poults started eating them, and of course, they died from the poison. But it is made for fly strike, and it you just spray the wound, it will kill the maggots as they come up for air.
DE will kill maggots if you put it on them directly. After the turkey incident my daughter did some experiments with chicken wings (meat) to see what natural methods work in case we get an injured animals in the summer again. Spraying the wound with diluted Shaklee's Basic H or sprinkling with DE kept flies from laying eggs. She had a piece of chicken that she put nothing on, and when the maggots started to hatch on that one, she sprinkled DE on them, and they died.
The flies look for a nice place to lay their eggs where the babies will have something to eat when they hatch, so they choose things like rotting flesh, wounded flesh, diarrhea, fresh birthing fluids, etc. The little ewe lamb's mother had given birth in the pasture shelter, which had no straw in it in July, so there was a lot of loose dirt, which got in the ewe lamb's wet wool. Based upon the timing and size of the maggots, the flies laid their eggs the day she was born.
So to avoid fly strike, just don't provide any nice places for maggots to live. Clean up babies born in the summer ASAP. Clean up diarrhea ASAP. And spray or sprinkle something on any wounds that happen when flies are in abundance.
(And of course, NOW I realize that I wrote nothing about this in my book!)
I'm really glad I learned about this, because I know that I have let things go a bit (a yucky bum) that I will now be meticulous about, now knowing that something like this could happen.
It should also be mentioned, because I've seen it said on a couple of sites, by people that don't understand what Fly Strike is, that "they are only eating dead flesh, maggots won't eat live flesh." This is NOT TRUE of the flies that Fly Strike happens with. They WILL eat healthy flesh, which is why this is really a Veterinary emergency, IMO. It happens QUICKLY, and becomes fatal even MORE quickly.
This article looks pretty good... has some good info on preventing it. Judging by google's search results, I'd say it's most common in Rabbits, but I have heard of it happening in Chickens, which is how I thought of it in the first place. Took me a while to remember the name. http://www.darwinvets.com/rabbits/flystrike
Thanks, Rechel. I'm going now to see if the "preventive measures" are listed. NEVER want to see this in real life. :)
Rachel Whetzel said: