# Sasha



## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

I lost one of my barred rocks, Sasha yesterday. She was such a funny girl, she always tried to boss the ducks around but Checkerboard (the REAL boss of the yard) wouldn't let her. She would go sulking back to her pen and sit by the feeder hahaha...

Seriously guys...Flies are no joke
Sasha died from maggots that got inside her body and destroyed her brain stem, she had a massive seizure and died. 

Fly control is life and death.
I have several types fly traps, sticky ribbons, etc out but it wasn't enough.
Please inspect your birds for any type of injury or sores DAILY and take action immediately. 

You are loved Sweet Sasha


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I'm so sorry, Sylie. It's difficult to lose any of them but sometimes the reason why makes it even harder.


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## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

Thank you, I keep a clean coop and yard, I try very hard to do my very best. Sometimes things just don't work like they should. Everyone thinks flystrike is a condition caused by unclean environments but it really isn't, it can be hospital clean and flystrike will happen. 
It can also happen in a matter of hours. I check all of my birds over the night before, like I always do and didn't see any type of problem, I didn't even see the ingrown feather that caused the sore that lead to this whole thing, in the morning when I let the birds out for the day, she seemed perfectly fine, she ate, drank, walked, talked etc. By 3 pm she was almost dead. I did everything I could and she managed to live 2 days more before the little (insert descriptive cuss word) got to her brain stem. The vet said it can happen in as little as 2 hours. 

Oh...I live in farm country, we have several farm vets in town, none of them will see chickens, I had to call a vet 50 miles away to do an autopsy (not a necropsy, I didn't want to deal with all of that hassle and pay for that since I knew what happened for the most part) to find out what happened exactly, why the seizure, why the rally the night before etc. I asked the vet about the fact that maggots are supposed to only eat rotting flesh and she said no, that's a myth. It is their meal of choice but given no other options, fresh living flesh works too.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

The uninformed are the ones that think that about maggots. It's one of those stories that keeps circulating even though there's no validity to it. The fact it happens to every living species should tell anyone with a brain that living conditions are not the sole reason for it happening.

At least you have an idea why it hit her so hard.


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## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

I'm not sure exactly why but I am still struggling with guilt over her death, I feel like I missed something, maybe didn't check good enough, something. I know i did everything right and did the best I could but I still feel this little "niggle" in the back of my head that I missed a sign.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

You, of all people, know how chickens can be. She just might have been even better at hiding an issue. We can't possible catch everything especially if they're hiding it from us.

The past couple of nights I've been hearing my old Hamburg hen making the little egg trill she's always made when laying. It's been two years since her last egg and it's at night when she's on the roost. We're marking time now.


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## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

oye, that must feel creepy. 

Yes, I do know but that just doesn't seem to stop the feeling that I did something or didn't do something that I should have. It's just a feeling and it's not something that I am obsessing about, it just comes to mind now and then throughout the day.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It's concerning because I know that the time she's no longer going to be with me is drawing close.

Yeah, I've done that too. Probably more than I'd like to admit.


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## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

I'm sorry. I hate waiting for "the other shoe to drop", it's awful. I'm sorry.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I'm so sorry for your loss. I had the fly issue with an Emu once in her neck. Emus are so tough that you don't know anything is wrong until they're down. We were able to save that bird. After treating the area for three days, she started to eat and was back on her feet. I did the same thing, why didn't I see it earlier? We know about seven farm vets because of the horses and only one said he would prescribe for an Emu but he didn't want to get in the pasture with them. Again, sorry for your loss.


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## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

Thank you so much, I appreciate it.


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## Deborah Formosa (Jul 30, 2020)

I have never heard of this type of condition wow it gives me something to worry about. I like to put fly traps around the outside of the pen durring warm months. I do see my chickens jump and catch a flying bug including flys. I take and then water down the inside of their fenced enclosure to keep flys down. I am sorry about the death of your precious girl I love my flock and it is truely a labor of .


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## Sylie (May 4, 2018)

Thank you.

watering the ground does help but keeping the flies away from the pen is the key. Put fly traps away from the pen/coop/run, draw the flies away from your birds. Clean the coop and run/pen daily, scoop as much poo as you can, the flies are attracted to it and want to make a home where they find "food" for their offspring. If you keep the poo scooped up (think of it like pooper scooping for a dog, you do that everyday, you need to do it for your chickens). Even with these measures, it can still happen. Just be on the watch, we always suggest that everyone check their birds each night for hidden injuries, illness, etc. It's not foolproof as I found out, you can miss something as insignificant as an ingrown feather, the flies will still bother the chickens even if the coop is pristine but the point is to minimize the fly problem.
That was one of my mistakes here, I put the fly traps by their pens drawing the flies TO the pen.


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