baby calf covered in maggots

[talltimber]

I'm experiencing another first and looking for some treatment ideas or just opinions/advice.

I was checking cows this morning and when I rode over the hill there was a group of cows/calves in a wad. Much closer than usual, all looking south. I looked that way and there was a coyote down there, across the wash in the next pasture. I have had a cow keeping her calf down there a while, basically since it was born a week ago. I laid eyes on him off and on all week. The last time was yesterday morning I believe. I get down there and the calf in laying in the dry wash bed looking at me. Ordinarily, I may have just drove on, but with the circumstances leading up the this I decided I better look him over. I first initially noticed some areas where the hair was off, some places down to meat, but then I noticed he was COVERED in maggots from between his shoulder blades, along his back to his a-hole. And he's not feeling good.

I get them to the barn and attempt to wash the maggots off, along with some hair coming off too. Called Dad to see if he had seen this before. He said yes, many times, and to spray him down with screw worm spray. We did that. He was humping up, passing gas. He did this regularly, with no feces, just basically gassy. I looked at his rear end, thinking he may be constipated, and I was pretty sure there were maggots in and out of him. I gave him some LA300, sprayed him down with screw worm spray, dousing him with it, and gave him about a 6cc enema of mineral oil, in case he was constipated, and gave him a bottle of milk which he drank half.

My wife went to town to get some supplies: more screw worm, iodine, soap and to the house for another bottle for him. I had went to finish checking cows, plus LOOK at all the calves to check for this problem on them. All good.

I get back to the barn and there is not one maggot alive that I can detect on him, including in/out of his rear. He does attempt to crap again, out comes a small was of stuff,mineral oil, I assume, along with a trace amount of bloody color, and maggots-dead.

Wife gets back and we bath him, and treat his bare hide/raw spots with a neosporin-like cream.

Sorry it turned out so lengthy, but I wanted to present all I could remember. Any experience with this, or thoughts about it?

 

[wbvs58]

What colour is he? He may have had diarrhoea and wet rear end that attracted the flies but along the topline may suggest some photosensitization.
Maggots can be horrific but they usually are pretty easy to kill. At this stage keeping him in the barn and out of sunlight and away from flies and your nursing is what is needed. That Neosporin cream is the go I would not get too enthusiastic with iodine. I suspect that the raw spots you have now may only be the tip of the iceberg and don't be surprised if the skin along the topline goes hard and lifts off leaving large areas of raw flesh underneath. I might be wrong, I often am but I suspect that damage to the skin is what attracted the flies to the area to lay eggs, the maggots do not do damage to healthy dry skin, even primary strike flies in sheep need to be attracted by wet urine smelly wool.
Ken

 

[coachg]

Where is mom ? Can you get her up and let her nurse him ? Did you see her ever clean him up? ; this may be the reason he was covered with flys to begin with.

 

[talltimber]

Black calf.

We've been cool for a little while here now. Sometime week before last it's been in the seventies/eighties.

I've seen him quite often. Not as often as I like, but I make it a point to find all of them and see that they are alive and doing ok (head up when I get close, and not skinny from a no milk condition when I can). I've got a hot wire around a lot of the pasture that leaves a grass edge between it and the woods that those little ones like to get in to lay down. Sometimes it takes a good while to find one, and sometimes don't, if the cow won't even move that way or look. I lay eyes on all on them at least once a day, but if he's laying down I may just drive on by and not make him get up, if his head is up and paying attention. That practice changed today.

Momma cleaned him up, at least it looked like she did. He was dry. He's a week old today, so he's been sucking and up and moving a while now. That's what is so odd to me that with the cool weather, and he's as old as he is. He has been staying outside the hot wire a lot, more times than not. Maybe he stayed out so much that Momma couldn't keep him licked properly. Idk.

He took about a third of a bottle tonight. Didn't look like he had sucked. He doesn't show a lot of interest after just a little milk. I've got his spots covered in the ointment.

 

[Nesikep]

Hopefully he pulls through it... the only experiences with maggots I've had are around horns.. a dehorned cow that didn't heal in time for fly season, and another that had a gnarled horn and with her habit of sticking her head through the fence, may have caught the wire between her horn and head, pulled, and made an injury for the flies to lay eggs in.
The dehorned cow was really bad, and it took months of doctoring (because I wasn't living on the farm I came every weekend or two to treat her, I was the only human that could get within 100 feet of her).

The other cow I doused ONCE with Absorbine Ultrashield and she healed up fine on her own after that.. it apparently kills/repels flies for nearly 3 weeks, so it's long enough she could heal up.

 

[Aaron]

Been there, got the t-shirt and is a main reason why I don't calve during fly season. Hydrogen peroxide is the go-to product to eliminate maggots.

 

[branguscowgirl]

You have to be careful with peroxide though. Only flush with it a couple of times because it can damage healthy tissue also. Look closely for tunnels deep under the skin and flush them out repeatedly with dilute Betadine in a syringe. (Dilute to tea color with water.) Any dead maggots in those tunnels can cause a toxic infection.
It sounds like you are doing all the right things! Injectable antibiotic, topical antibiotic and keeping clean. Remember that the flys laid eggs at different times, so you could have more hatch over the next couple of days or so.
Swat found in the horse section, is a good antiseptic/fly repellent for wounds.
Don't feel bad, it only takes 8-12 hours to have a bad maggot infestation. I just dealt with it in chickens.

 

[angus9259]

It's called "fly strike" - happens more to sheep. If you calve in fly weather, the flies can lay eggs on the damp calf right after birth before it dries. Then they keep laying eggs on the open oozing sites. Since I calve end of aug to first of sept, I see it every so often - in fact I watch for it. If the calf dries off or it rains before the flies find it, you're fine. I watch for the calves that are flagging their tail or twitching like they have flies on them and I can tell something is up. Maybe 1 calf in 20 per year will get hit. And, yes, pulled them out of anus' and vagina's before....

 

[talltimber]

Well it's good to hear from some who has actually had it happen. I'm sorry you had it happen, but it's good for me to hear of it. Dad is the only one I've talked to around here that acts like they've ever had the problem before.

He's still alive. Keeping him in the barn with Momma and had kept him smeared with Corona for several days. There was some weeping spots still, so I went to just spraying him with screw worm thinking it might let it dry out a little more. Keeping their pen sprayed down with permethrin. If the edges get hard (still losing some skin, falling off where it's dead) I'll go back to Corona a couple days. Called my vet and he said normally a healthy calf won't get them, they'll keep them rubbed off or Momma will keep him licked clean. He's got quite a good little bit of raw area on him. He will get up and follow Momma, sucking, but a little lethargic at times. I'm hoping he doesn't get pneumonia or an infection. He may make it if he don't develop another problem.

 

[angus9259]

Called my vet and he said normally a healthy calf won't get them,

All due respect to your vet - this is not a true statement. Perhaps the momma's attentiveness plays into it some but a calf can only dry as fast as it's gonna dry and if the flies are bad the calves can get strike.

 

[talltimber]

It sounds true, if you're only getting 1/20 and I can't get anyone around here to admit they've had it except Dad! :lol2:

Not making excuses for him, but I read that to mean that there was a reason he didn't get them off. And if you had read my original post about it you would have known the unknown was that this calf slipped behind a single strand hot wire to hide quite often. That decreased the time Momma had to clean him daily. I don't think that just because a calf is wet (with water) he is subject to strike?

 

[branguscowgirl]

Any animal can get fly strike. All it takes is a glop of poop on the hair that the flys want to lay eggs in. There is usually some skin irritation beneath the matted hair. That's all it takes!

 

[wbvs58]

Your problem is what has caused the skin to die in the first place. The flystrike has not caused the dead skin. The fly and maggots have only come in because they have been attracted to the dying skin. Once all the dead skin falls off it will heal well as long as the flys are kept at bay
Ken

 

[Angus Cowman]

With him being lethargic and not acting interested in nursing very much
I would check his temp and if he has one
Hit him with something stronger than LA300
I would probly go with Draxxin or Baytril
I would say he has something else wrong with him making him lethargic
Most cases I have seen of this the calf had another problem(sickness) leading up to this problem

 

[talltimber]

I think that is a possibility. Although he always was alert, had his head up and looking around and not necessarily droopy looking, when I checked him I think he might have been a little under the weather and maybe that's why he stayed in the brush so much.

He has been feeling much better, although he looks like hell with the raw places. I'm keeping them up until the skin is healed, so I can keep it medicated. He's jigging around and bucking some now, so maybe he will come around. If it will stay cool like yesterday maybe we're done with the flies. He felt much better and I did too.

I did take his temp once, the first time he got droopy acting after getting them up. (I gave him the first round with those two when I initially found him without temping) 102.9 That's when I gave him the LA and banamine. If he gets droopy again I'll check his temp and maybe try one of the others next time.

There was a comment above about LA not being the correct type of antibiotic for this type of case. Could you expand on that any for me? Or point me in a direction to where I can find a guide for choosing types of antibiotics according to what ails them? As far as I know, since they changed from giving Penicillin for almost everything, now they give LA for about anything. Foot rot, fescue foot, sniffles, bad cuts, etc. The pneumonia type sickness, Nuflor, Nuflor Gold has been the go to's and if they don't work, the Baytril, Draxxin.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Better ask your vet about the type of antibiotic for this particular calf. My experience with the chickens was a bit trying, to say the least. LA 300 did not work for the wound infections from the maggots. Through my research for the proper antibiotic for them, I came across a med chart indicating the Pen G daily. That did the trick!
However your calf may have a different organism altogether. The only way to know is a culture and sensitivity of the drainage. Also, though we use a lot of cattle antibiotics in chickens they metabolize them completely different.
It is also questionable of where the infection is with your calf.......wounds? Lungs? Intestinal? Blood?
It really could be more than one problem, don't you think?

 

[Poppy 23]

flystrike powder - that kills them and the maggots fall off/out, OH also mentioned a that u can mix it with water, put in a bottle and spray on there too which does excatly the same thing so i'm sure you could flush that with a syringe as well.

 

[Chloecole]

Can

I'm experiencing another first and looking for some treatment ideas or just opinions/advice.

I was checking cows this morning and when I rode over the hill there was a group of cows/calves in a wad. Much closer than usual, all looking south. I looked that way and there was a coyote down there, across the wash in the next pasture. I have had a cow keeping her calf down there a while, basically since it was born a week ago. I laid eyes on him off and on all week. The last time was yesterday morning I believe. I get down there and the calf in laying in the dry wash bed looking at me. Ordinarily, I may have just drove on, but with the circumstances leading up the this I decided I better look him over. I first initially noticed some areas where the hair was off, some places down to meat, but then I noticed he was COVERED in maggots from between his shoulder blades, along his back to his a-hole. And he's not feeling good.

I get them to the barn and attempt to wash the maggots off, along with some hair coming off too. Called Dad to see if he had seen this before. He said yes, many times, and to spray him down with screw worm spray. We did that. He was humping up, passing gas. He did this regularly, with no feces, just basically gassy. I looked at his rear end, thinking he may be constipated, and I was pretty sure there were maggots in and out of him. I gave him some LA300, sprayed him down with screw worm spray, dousing him with it, and gave him about a 6cc enema of mineral oil, in case he was constipated, and gave him a bottle of milk which he drank half.

My wife went to town to get some supplies: more screw worm, iodine, soap and to the house for another bottle for him. I had went to finish checking cows, plus LOOK at all the calves to check for this problem on them. All good.

I get back to the barn and there is not one maggot alive that I can detect on him, including in/out of his rear. He does attempt to crap again, out comes a small was of stuff,mineral oil, I assume, along with a trace amount of bloody color, and maggots-dead.

Wife gets back and we bath him, and treat his bare hide/raw spots with a neosporin-like cream.

Sorry it turned out so lengthy, but I wanted to present all I could remember. Any experience with this, or thoughts about it?

I ask where did you buy mineral oil from I'm in the same situation and would like to try it

 

[highlandvines]

We had fly strike once on a summer black calf. It was bad, I swear the maggots were crawling in and out of his ribs. We bathed him in ivemectin, sprayed antibiotic on the wounds, sprayed liquid bandage on the wounds. Thought he was gone but in a day the maggots seemed to be falling off him and he eventually pulled through. His hair never did grow back in some places but I was amazed that he made it.

 

[Nick Wagner]

Can

I ask where did you buy mineral oil from I'm in the same situation and would like to try it

Any farm supply store should have it. Have to kill the maggots, stop more damage from occurring, use screw worm spray. Might also give some electrolytes. Just the start, good luck.