A bad case of the strike
This is Maggot Mary (we just call her Mary).
I recently acquired a dozen chickens, who came with my new house.
The entire flock was skittish for the first two days, so I didn’t notice her scrunched in the back. By the end of the week though, the ladies were crowding around me, fighting for toast scraps and berries. Except Mary. She was lethargic and slow, and didn’t bother to eat anything I offered her.
So I grabbed her, stuck her into a stall, and checked her over. I won’t get TMI here, but she was pretty far into flystrike. There were more than a few maggots in an open wound on her vent. I’d had chickens all my life and never dealt with this. So the iodine dumping began. She got a saline bath every few hours, and I swallowed any gag reflex and cleaned her up.
It’s been about a week since the wounds healed, and I excited to say that I think she’s on the mend, or at least well enough to break into my planter boxes! Old Reddit threads were invaluable in her treatment, so thank you very much r/chickens.