Flystrike

[MaineHighlands]

Our highland calf (not the rejected one in earlier post) was found today and was covered in maggots. She has flystrike. The vet was out she shaved and bathed the calf and covered her in hydrogen peroxide to flush the maggots. I sprayed a little insectrin on her parts that were not affected, but dh read about flystrike powder. Is that available at TSC?
Also, we had to give her a bottle b/c momma wouldn't come into the corral where the baby was to nurse her and we couldn't drive her in, she just went into the far corner of the pasture.
So, the momma is grunting for the calf, but wouldn't come near it tonight... The calf looks all shaven and bathed. Will the mother still mother the baby if we try to get her into the corral 3x per day to nurse her? We have to keep the calf in the barn warm and dry. I am really hopeful that the momma won't reject the baby... Any advice on the flystrike and also on keeping the mom interested?

-Jill

 

[ksalvagno]

Is the mom upset about being in the barn? Could you just keep mom and calf in the barn for now? I'm guessing the shaving and everything has made the calf a little different to mom too.

 

[SheepGirl]

How's the calf doing?

I had a ewe lamb get fly strike about a month ago and since she was small enough I brought her in the house and picked out all the maggots and cut off as much of the eggs as I could. Then I sprayed her wound with water and then I sprayed it with iodine and also Prozap fly spray. The iodine helps to get the wound to dry up (like it does with drying up the umbilical cord) and the fly spray prevents eggs from hatching, kills any maggots I may have missed, and prevents flies from laying anymore eggs.

If you get a fly spray, it needs to be labeled for blowflies. A fly spray that will take care of house flies and horse flies and other types of flies won't really bother blowflies, which are the type of fly that cause fly strike.

My ewe lamb was completely healed in about a week, even though the only thing I did for her was the initial treatment on the first day I found her with maggots.