Disclaimer: I am not a professional. I’m not a vet. I just do research and try to do the best for my chickens. If ever in doubt, take your chickens or livestock to a professional vet.

What does it mean when a chicken has flystrike? Flystrike is when flies lay eggs on your chicken. The eggs hatch into maggots. Maggots eat and burrow into the chicken’s skin. It is really gross. The later that the fly struck is caught, then the chicken has a less chance of surviving.

The first time we had fly strike was 2 years ago with our beloved rooster. He was a really nice Rhode Island red, which a lot of people claim they are the meanest but I have to say that’s not true. Second time dealing with flystrike was the beginning of this month with a hen.

With both chickens, we had a lot of rain before they had fly strike. Our rooster had it in the summer. Our hen had it towards the end of winter. After the rain we had a nice warm day. We live in Virginia so it’s not uncommon to have freezing cold weather one day and then a nice summary, warm day during the end of winter and spring.

Our rooster had been out of it one morning. When I say out of it, I mean not alert, coming when called (yes, he came when called) and aimlessly walking slow around the yard which was not like him at all. I remember I put him in the green house with me as I worked on potting vegetable plants. I remember I had picked him up twice. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. We ended up going off for a few hours. We came back home and he was in the middle of dying. After he died, we noticed he had maggots under his wing. He lived with other chickens and no one else got it. Just him.

The hen I noticed was walking slow but also funky. I don’t know how else to describe it but you would know there is something wrong when you saw her walk. She’d slowly lift one leg, gingerly set the foot down, slowly lift up the other leg,, etc. She then pecked at her butt or tail area. I thought maybe she has mites, maybe she is starting to be egg bound. When I checked her, I saw there were maggots all over her vent and below. She also had poo everywhere!

We brought our chicken in. Filled up a tub with warm soapy water (we used liquid dish soap because that’s what we had, I think a lot of people like to use Dawn…well we used Ajax). We soaked the chicken, rubbed her butt with a cut up shirt to get the maggots and poop off. This works best if there are two people, one person to hold the chicken and the other to do the dirty work. 😅

I trimmed off poopy feathers. Maggots were pulled off with tweezers. The water was dumped then refilled with clean soapy water. We soaked her again. I rubbed her down with the cloth. I pulled more maggots off with the tweezers. Water was dumped again and I refilled it with more clean, soapy water and I let her soak for 20 minutes.

While she was in the little tub we put a laundry basket over her so she couldn’t jump out.

Once she was done soaking for 20 minutes, I took her out. I pulled off any remaining maggots. For us, there were only three or four. When I saw there were no more maggots I put vetericyn spray in a syringe, and applied a little bit into her vent and a little wound she had on her butt. I applied neosporin (antibiotic ointment) onto her vent and all over her butt where the maggots had been. I towel and blow dried her off. She stayed in the house that night. Next morning no maggots. I rubbed her down with my homemade udder wipes . If I had had baby wipes, I would have used those. I sprayed vetericyn spray. I put more neosporin on her. Since it was so nice outside, we put her back outside . Later that night and a few nights after I sprayed her butt with vetericyn spray.

If there had been more maggots, she would have been soaked and scrubbed all over again.

I think it helps that we caught it early.

Basically:

  • Soak the chicken in warm soapy water.
  • Scrub dirt, poop, and maggots off.
  • Use tweezer to pull maggots off.
  • Dump the water and Refill with clean warm soapy water.
  • Repeat scrubbing and using the tweezers.
  • Spray with Vetericyn Spray.
  • When you feel you have gotten all maggots. Give her 20 minute soak.
  • Pull off any remaining maggots. Make a decision if you have gotten all the maggots or not.
  • If maggots are still playing peek a boo in wound then soak the chicken again.
  • Once maggots aren’t seen anymore, dry the chicken off.
  • Spray with Vetericyn Spray.
  • If it’s cold outside, I’d leave the chicken inside because she could go into shock. Use your best judgement.

I had another chicken where all large maggots were gotten off. Next, we pulled off as many smaller ones that we could. When you shine a light over the skin, tiny maggots could be seen in the skin slithering. Since, it was getting so late, we decided to wait until the next day. The next day the maggots that were seen inside of the skin were now protruding out and were able to be gotten out by doing all the steps above again.

It is a lot of work but it can be done successfully if diligent.