Maggots

*Warning Graphic Content*

Shared for Educational Purposes

Reader and viewer discretion advised

This week I experienced on of the most disturbing things that a person who raises chickens can come by. In fact, this is probably one of the most disturbing things I have encountered in my life. Read on at your own discretion.

Never in my life did I think I would ever think I would pick maggots out of the rear end of a chicken, but this week I did just that. I may need professional help to deal with the ugly images for ever burned in my brain. It all started when one of the kids pointed out that our hen, Zoe had a messy butt from runny poop the other day. As if that alone isn’t gross enough. Yuck! Then a couple days later we noticed some feathers missing and a good size sore developing. We brought her inside to inspect her better and that is when we discover the maggots. Oh the horror, oh the agony, oh the disgust!

As we were looking at her rear end we saw that the maggots had eaten away at her flesh and were trying to burrow into her body. I was absolutely horrified and terrified by what I was seeing. Unfortunately, my first though was that, I’m going to have to put her down, how can she survive this? She is such a great chicken though! I didn’t want to kill her, but I didn’t want her to suffer either. As I was evaluating her I realized that she didn’t seem at all bothered by what was happening to her. If we hadn’t seen up close what was going on we wouldn’t have know what was happening to her. Startingly she seemed just fine by all outward appearances. We loved her and wanted to giver her the best life, like with all of our animals. That’s when I decided to do the thing I thought I would never do - pick out the maggots.

I decided to start by having her soak in a soapy bath in hopes that it would kill some or all of the maggots. I filled up a nice warm bubble bath for her in the kitchen sink. Surprisingly she seemed very content in her bath! I didn’t have to force her to stay - she just did all on her own.

After a while I drained the bath and then proceeded to spray her wound area with the sink hose. I could see the maggots falling off the whole time. I just kept spraying until they stopped falling off. I then inspected her and could still many still in there. That’s when I grabbed the tweezers and decided to go ahead and start pulling them out. It was so horrible. I think a part of me died in that moment and I’ll never get that back. I couldn’t believe what I was doing! I saw some make their way further into her. I wondered how internally infested she may be and felt disheartened about it. Somehow, I persevered and kept at it. I then sprayed her wound with an antiseptic spray to help sooth her, prevent an infection, and hopefully kill more of those awful maggots.

We had her stay indoors with us for a few days so that we could keep an eye on her. I also didn’t want to risk a reinfestation to her vulnerable area. The next day Zoe had more maggots reappear. I kind of figured that may happen after seeing some go inside of her the day before. At least it was a much less amount than when we first found them. I again went through the process of rinsing her behind with soap and water. I then tweezed the maggots out again and sprayed her with the antiseptic spray.

Each day I would inspect her and find less and less maggots. Then finally one day no new maggots! Her wound was also starting to heal and scab over! Yay! After going through all that horror, finally some very positive signs! She was healing and was going to make it! I felt really proud of myself at that point! It was a horribly traumatic experience seeing and dealing with all that, but I felt really good know that I saved her! It may have been quicker and easier to just put her down. I can feel good in knowing that I was able to help her live on!

Take this as a learning experience about the importance of promptly cleaning any visible poop off of a chicken’s feathers. We learned the hard way that the poop is a magnet for flies to lay their eggs and that fly eggs are what turn into maggots. It is also very helpful to have antiseptic spray around when you have a little hobby farm. Using a spray is much easier for animal wounds. Sorry for the graphic content. I relived this trama to help out someone that may find a similar situation in one of their chickens. In our case it looked much worse than it was. A chicken can be saved from maggots if you are willing to go through the gruesome process of helping them.