‘By mid-afternoon she was off her legs and clearly unwell'

Diarist Chris Bird has to deal with a nasty case of fly strike among his small flock

- Chris Bird

Fly strike is often described as about the nastiest thing that can befall a sheep. Now I know how true that is. I try to cast an eye over my sheep at least twice a day. Lameness, lying down away from the flock, excessive tail twitching, rubbing against fence posts, or lethargic behaviour all merit a closer look. So when I noticed Marshmellow — named by one of my grandchildren — shaking her tail and trying to scratch her rump, I made a mental note to examine her. I decided it was a job best left to the end of day when we had relatives visiting and a few extra pairs of hands.

Bad decision! By mid-afternoon she was off her legs and clearly unwell. When I examined her rump the first thing I noticed was a foul smell and I had soon discovered a writhing patch of maggots burrowing into her flesh. The wool in the affected area pulled away easily so I was able to clear away most of the maggots and spray with Crovect and iodine for good measure.

Clearly Marshmellow was suffering from toxaemia and so needed further treatment.

A quick visit to the vet and I returned armed with injections of Alamycin, a long-acting antibiotic, Recocam, an anti-inflammatory to reduce pain,and Dectomax to kill any maggots too deep in the flesh to be polished off by the spray, as well as fly cream to smother the area. Phew! Luckily she was still unable to stand and so carrying out intramuscular and subcutaneous injections was fairly easy.

Recovery was swift and my best ewe was soon grazing contentedly alongside her almost fully grown ewe lamb, so I decided not to quarantine her.

A careful look at the rest of the small flock revealed one more ewe with an early infestation of maggots that hadn’t burrowed beneath the skin and were easily removed. The whole flock was sprayed with Crovect and wormed for good measure.