Gordie wrote:
> 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.
Re "accusing" - these questions and answers can get accessed a long time
later so it is VERY im****tant not to let people go away with the
impression that something that is actually very harmful 99% of the time
is actually a great idea. That's also why I wanted to find out the full
story because I couldn't believe that the bird recovered from a maggot
infestation that wasn't brought to a halt! So thank you for the full
account of it, VERY interesting. Such lucky coincidences for that one
chick and for you, even if you did find the maggot-removal process
highly unattractive.
What a sweet dog! There again you get the ardent pro- and anti-dog
factions, and you'll probably find yourself quoted out of context some
day to sup****t someone's argument that dogs NEVER hurt chickens :~\
Skunk, eh. I know very little about them apart from the obvious. That
methodical killing sounded similar to stoats: killing and dragging the
body(ies) away. Nasty creatures not content to kill one and eat it. I'm
so glad you gave the varmint a suitable dose of lead poisoning.
Have you been able to make the coop skunk-proof? I hope so, and wish
you all the best with your chickens from now on.
A L P
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