Flystrike (Myiasis) is a painful, sometimes fatal, condition caused by flies laying eggs on another animal, usually in wounds or on sick animals.
We receive many cases of hogs suffering with flystrike, and it is a very time consuming job to clean it off manually. Because of this, we have purchased a portable suction machine which will help us clean hogs with fly strike, among other things
We have another victim of entrapment/constriction injury.
This hog was seen on cctv playback, and noticed there was something wrong with its back left leg.
We were sent the video by Neil, who told us that he would try and catch the hog that night, which luckily he was able to do, and we collected it straight away.
We have had a really busy weekend and Bank holiday, with several hogs with fly strike on their wounds that needed cleaning.
Amongst several hogs that came on was this female, who came in to us this evening after having been found out in daylight when the homeowner went out to see what his dog was barking at, and found her not moving.
Update on Mabel the hog with constriction injuries ….
On Friday she came back to us after spending 24 hours with our vet. During that time she was anesthetised to enable her gaping throat wound to be cleaned and debrided. She also has laser treatment to speed up the healing process.
We hope you are all enjoying your Bank Holiday weekend!
Ours has been spent mostly picking off flystrike from the many hogs who have come in over the weekend, hence not so many updates recently.
Please remember if you are doing any gardening or DIY in your gardens, look out for hedgehogs and in particular nests of babies. They may be under a shrub, a shed, decking, behind plant pots and even under the tarpaulin covers of garden furniture or bar-b-ques.
If you happen to disturb a nest, please cover it over again and give us a call for advice. We are here 24/7 on 07587 925476
No sooner finished one hog with fly strike, and another comes in.
This one was brought to us from Blandford, having been found trapped in plastic. The finder cut the hog free and brought it straight to us.
This poor hogs ears were packed solid with flies eggs, and it has a garrote type wound about its neck that was also covered in eggs.
Bit of a nasty one this.
We had a juvenile male hog dropped off this afternoon, following a call asking if we could take it. We were told that it was in a bad way with a head wound, dehydrated, had flies all over it and smelled.
He had been found yesterday, but not handed in until today. At this time of year, it takes approx 4 hours from flies eggs being laid until the maggots hatch. If we’d had this chap yesterday we could have saved him a lot of pain and discomfort.
Tiny Pikachu trying his first solids, a mix of Esbilac and Hills a/d. His teeth are now starting to appear.
He seemed more interested in the lid (off a small jar) at first, then seemed to realise the meat was there and was tasty 😀 He polished off the whole lot in the end.
This should mean we can go longer between feeds now, which Tracy will be happy about.
It’s nice holding them to feed them, but better when they can feed themselves.
Last night we said a fond but tearful farewell to Colin, the hog we have in our care longer than any other.
He came to us as a juvenile aged approx 4-5 months on the evening of 23rd August 2018, after being trapped between two brick walls below ground level for five days. He appeared to have walked along or climbed over a garden wall and fallen into the 6inch gap behind, trapping him against a garage wall. In that time he had tried frantically to climb out, but at a depth of around 3ft below the garden level this was impossible. The frantic scratching to climb out resulted in him losing all the claws on his front feet and the tip of some of the toes.
