Re: Neighbors dog got in my chickens

Gordie wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:05:43 +0100,  Jill wrote:
> 
>> Gordie wrote:
>>> Had a young chicken that had a big wound under one wing from a skunk
>>> bite.  Flies laid eggs on the wound and the maggots ate all the dead
>>> tissue keeping the site clean.  She lived and thrived.
>> And fly strike - which is what that was - is a sure way to kill any
>> animal. The maggots do not eat only dead tissue but continue all the
way
>> in and eat the animal inside out.
>> Ask any sheep farmer or rabbit owner particularly
>> www.google.co.uk/search?q=fly+strike
>>
>> www.google.co.uk/images?q=fly+strike   - not for the squeamish
>>
>> I am glad your bird survived but its not a great choice of treatment.
> 
> I didn't choose the treatment.  Just re****ting what happened.
> Doctors are using maggots now to removed dead tissue.  It is said that 
> they only eat the dead tissue and not living tissue.
> It disgusts me to even think of it but the chicken lived and thrived and

> after a year you couldn't tell which bird it was.

It sounds as if you and the bird were lucky, so perhaps it's worth 
asking why, since what Jill said is true too in all too many cases.

The secret is to remove the maggots before they start chomping into 
living flesh.  It seems that this must have happened with your bird. 
Why, how?

Did you find the bird when it still had maggots and clean them off?

Another reason (I'm speculating here) is that when they got into the 
good flesh they hurt or tickled and she became aware of their presence, 
and was able to reach them and peck them off.

Or perhaps they were obvious to the other birds who thought "Lovely - a 
mobile diner!" and pecked them off but fortunately didn't continue and 
peck at the raw flesh?

I caught a possum recently in a Timms trap that kills them instantly. 
Rang a friend to ask if his dogs would like it.  He said no, and 
suggested - not entirely joking - that I throw it up a tree so the 
chooks could eat the maggots that would grow on it and drop off.  Fresh 
protein for days and days!

It would be interesting to know why fly-strike was beneficial to your 
bird, because as Jill says it is more commonly an absolutely terrible 
thing.

When I was very young my elderly doctor told me that soldiers who had 
the least scarring from wounds were the ones who had the added grossness 
of maggots hatching in them, before the men could be taken to the safety 
of field hospitals and cleaned up.  Then decades later I began to read 
about the "new" treatment, using maggots specially bred in clean
conditions.


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