[Jacob-list] Re: Fly strike

[gordon johnston]

Hi Abigail
Immediately on finding any fly strike, we would use dagging shears to cut back the wool and chop up and gently scrape off the maggots and any eggs.  A  product such as Crovect (I don't know if you have this in the USA - it kills eggs and maggots at all stages of growth) would then be sprayed onto the area and it's surrounds to make sure no maggots remained and to prevent re-infestation.  The horrible things cause such distress to the animal that we prefer to get them off straight away - it's not a pleasant task, but the sooner they are gone the better - also the chickens like to eat them <G>.  So if you find any more, you don't need to wait until you have a spray, just scrape them off then spray when you have it.
We have found this year, which has been very wet here in Britain, that fly strike has been a big problem even when using preventive sprays.  I am lucky never to have seen fly strike on a dog, but last year when our very old cat was approaching death and had taken herself off to die, the flies began laying eggs on her .  I could just pick them off before they hatched but I wondered if they could detect approaching death - if they had hatched they would have been ready to attack as soon as she died.
Hateful things !!!
Juliet in Scotland
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20040914/854dc2d1/attachment.htm