[Foobar]

One of my lambs decided to break his horn off sometime today (after my morning check at 8am). And due to the wonderful weather we have, the pouring blood obviously attracted all the flies in the village and by the time I checked on him tonight (6pm) he had a head full of fly eggs.  Arse.

I initially tried to wash out as many as I could, with a warm dettol solution.  They are all tucked in around the base of the broken horn and are very difficult to get out.  I used a little brush and got out as many as I could, and trimmed as much wool as possible but its only short anyway and tricky to trim in that area.  So I did as best I could but there are still some in there.  The poor chap, it obviously still hurts from the break and he's not happy at all with me poking around!

I've then syringed about 5ml of Crovect around said horn.  (from my last remaining 10ml of Crovect, I hope it's still functional as it's not been stored below 25 degrees during the summer due to the hot weather!)

My questions are ... does dettol have any effect on the fly eggs?  and, will the crovect kill the eggs, or does it only work on the hatched maggots?

(I guess I'll find out in the morning!)

[SallyintNorth]

I don't know about Crovect killing the eggs, but it would certainly kill any larvae that emerge, so same effect 

[irenemcc]

agree with SallyintNorth, the crovect will kill the emerging larvae.  It has I think a 6 week effect and so should also stop any more eggs being laid.  And the dettol should prevent any other infection getting in - all good.

[Foobar]

Ok!  I'll wait for the little critters to hatch and see what happens.


I'm keeping him in for a few days anyway now until I am sure there are no maggots or anything, and until all signs of blood have gone.  I don't trust this last bit of Crovect that I have to protect him outside, it's not even blue any more.

[GoWest]

Sounds like it should be fine

In the past I have put cotton wool on the bloddy horn bud. The blood sticks to the cotton wool to hold it on. Then apply crovect to the cotton wool  and the horn base for good measure.

[Foobar]

Update on this little fella ... he's been kept in all this time and is well in himself, but on monday I noticed that his horn was oozing a bit and it smelt a bit pongy, so I washed it all up again (I had previously sealed it up with some stokholm tar) and gave him a jab of antibiotics (alamycin, as that's the only thing i keep in stock).  Looking at him today, its still oozing and still smells but not quit so bad.

I never did see any sign of any maggots.

Anyone got any ideas or methods of drawing this nastiness out from the horn bud?  A poultice maybe? Or salt water soak?  Annoyingly this chap is due for the chop in two weeks so I don't want to give any heavy duty drugs or anything if I can help it.