On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:57:40 +1200, A_ L _P wrote:
> 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?
Lost 22 birds the night before and found the bodies stacked like cordwood
under the subfloor of the coop. Still didn't know what the predator was
at the time. Every bird on the floor was dead. All the mamas and all
the babies dead. Lost the entire year's little ones in one night. All
that were on the roost were alive and traumatized.
Came home from work and let the dog off the leash. Was standing around
and enjoying the weather and noticed the dog carrying this chick around
with a worried look on her face. There was a hole the size of a silver
dollar under its wing and small maggots on the wound. You could see the
insides so I didn't think it could make it but set out with tweezers to
remove the tiny maggots. Washed and dried the wound and applied
PolyS****in and that lucky chick stayed in the house for a long while. It
must have been injured the evening before and was hiding and I didn't see
it.
Got the single pipe shotgun and some 7-1/2 shot and went out to the coop,
put a 15 Watt bulb in the socket and left the light on and the door
barely open. Dressed up nice to keep the bugs off and to stay warm and
slept in the back room with our baby male goat. The chickens woke me up
and I saw the skunk. He DIDN'T see me :)
The bad part was kicking the carcass out of the coop with my new running
shoe and now the shoes had to sleep outside for more than a month :))
My only reason for posting this was the question was "Do I need to kill
the injured ones or can I give them awhile to see if they recover?" and I
say you would be surprised what some of them can go through and survive.
I didn't choose the maggots anymore than I chose to have the skunk kill
the chickens (don't even know what kind of fly laid the eggs in the
wound).
>
> 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!
Oh yeah. Chickens love maggots. When we find something with maggots on
it I will call the chickens and watch the fun.
>
> 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.
>
>
> A L P
Yes, they are using maggots to clean the dead flesh from wounds. Not for
me. I wouldn't like bugs on my boo-boo. I was real upset when I had to
pick the maggots out of that wound.
The dog is a Lab/Shephard cross and is gentle to a fault. She won't hurt
a chicken but will raid the nest if you let her have an op****tunity. She
retrieved the injured chick but didn't know what the rest of the story
should be since she isn't a trained retriever. Must have carried it for
awhile before we noticed because the chick was sopping wet.
By the way. Thanks for asking and not accusing.
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