He seemed a little off colour for a few days, then yesterday Katie found him lying with his head in the fence (not an electric one) and on inspecting him with Doug they found him still alive, but COVERED in maggots. This is a really really REALLY gross thing that is fairly common in sheep called 'fly strike', where the blow fly (which is green and shiny) lays hundreds of eggs on the fleece and when they hatch they head down through the fleece and start eating the sheep alive! Generally it occurs on animals that are weakened for some reason, healthy ones can knock off the eggs and maggots by grooming themselves.
We did an emergency shearing and then tried to kill all the maggots by picking them off, then hosing them off with water when there were just too many, and with fly spray. More gross than you can possibly imagine.
In the time between finding him and getting back with the shears and emergency treatment kit he had collapsed on to his side and started having fits with his legs stretched out and his eyes rolling. He was finding it hard to breath too.
Once we had him all cleaned up we put him in the barn wrapped in a towel to keep warm. He seemed slightly better in that the fits had mostly stopped and he seemed a bit more conscious. But sadly while I was at the vet getting some antibiotics he died.
We are still not quite sure what caused the fitting as it is not mentioned in any cases of fly strike I have read about. I am reading about magnesium deficiency which can cause fitting, we also wondered whether a maggot had got to his brain. Whatever it is, it is likely that that was the root of the problem and it was him being weak that allowed the fly strike to progress. It progresses really really fast and the sheep can go in a few hours from just having eggs on it that you can hardly see to having big holes eating it it. Nevertheless of course we feel sad for not having spotted it sooner and having let him suffer like that. It is our first attack of fly strike and we can see now why people are so afraid of it. I was going to say I felt guilty, but I don't, just sad. Realistically we cannot inspect every sheep close up in the wool the twice a day it would take to spot a strike early on. In general the older breeds like the Ouessant are held to be less susceptible to it - when healthy anyway. You can get products a bit similar to frontline for dogs that can reduce the chances of it hitting. We need to consider if we want to treat all the sheep, all the time just in case it happens again as it gets expensive, plus all the treatments are pretty poisonous so do we want to be around that and handle it on the sheep all the time. Sheering can help so we will try to do it earlier in the year. We will also certainly get some better stuff to kill the maggots if it happens again, and continue to keep a very close eye on the behavior and health of all the sheep to spot ones that might be susceptible.
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