about fly-eggs

[nofly]

hi,

about fly-eggs here..
having some in-room pet rabbits i found white (with dark head) maggots in the poop/pee corners when cleaning the cages.
in the very warm (hot) (around 32 degr. C) weather over here (NL) i had some flies in the room too.

my questions:
* how can i recognise fly-eggs (how big are these, what color, where?)
* how long does it take for the maggots coming out of the eggs (think only a few days??)
(important for the cleaning frequency of the cages)
* do these maggots concentrate only in 'wet' places, with organic material (desintegrating)?
* am i right to think maggots of the 'house fly' don't harm the rabbits (as they don't eat flesh)?

* i **am** aware of the enormous danger of the 'bottle fly' (blueish, greenish) yes!!

thanks for your help!
rob

[Gill Catton]

fly eggs are like tiny white grains of rice - they lay them on my cat's food if I leave it out too long this time of year, not sure about hatchng times but I do know that rabbits do suffer from fly strike so I'd keep checking it's nether's quite regularly - keep the fur trimmed short etc.... Not sure again if house fly maggots can do damage - wouldn't be suprised - plus not sure if you can id a fly from the maggot all that easily.......

[Alan]

Hi nofly and welcome to WAB.

As far as I know, most maggots only eat infected decaying flesh. They are even used in some types of medical treatment to clean up infected wounds. Or course I suppose it depends on the species of fly/maggot. Best to be carefull though an keep the environ clean as most flies seem to be more interested in discarded food or droppings.

Alan

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by Alan

Hi nofly and welcome to WAB.

As far as I know, most maggots only eat infected decaying flesh. They are even used in some types of medical treatment to clean up infected wounds. Or course I suppose it depends on the species of fly/maggot. Best to be carefull though an keep the environ clean as most flies seem to be more interested in discarded food or droppings.

Alan

This is it, I think they start causing real problems when eggs are laid on droppings stuck to the rabbits bottom, when they've eaten all that's good (?!!!) from the droppings they have no choice but to start eating the rabbit's bottom...
Horrible....
keep checking your bunny

[nofly]

i will answer with this to some of the preceding posts..

thank you for the friendly welcome and your responses.

i subscribed the forum out of pragmatic view to hear about these insects.

"tiny white grains of rice": can these be seen with the naked eye?

the flies i have seen in the room and which seem to have 'breeded' from these eggs were
unspectacular 'common flies' as you see very commonly in summer.

"most maggots only eat infected (= with eggs??) decaying flesh" "used in treatment"
yes, 've seen that on tv before.
but 'my' maggots seem to live in the poop/pee corner only; i can hardly imagine any decaying flesh is present there, as rabbits only eat hay and green stuff and rabbit pellets (declared to be vegetable only).
the poop/pee corners are quite wet (from pee) and as the cages have straw for covering the floors, i could imagine 'decaying straw' + poop would build the biotope..

in conjunction to that the following observation: in former years the rabbits were on an underground of wood shavings; there have been hot summers in the last few years too, and, besides having flies in the room (coming from outside) I have never noticed maggots on cleanup. quite recently there was a publication over here (from a veterinarian) stating that keeping rabbits (and other rodents, as rats) on wood shavings would do harm to the animals due to volatile components of the resin(s) contained in the wood (mostly cheap pines).
after having read that, i changed to straw.
but: could these resin component -being bad for the rabbits on one hand- on the other hand be a 'natural insecticide' against these eggs/maggots??
when you can be supportive to this, i would change back to wood shavings over the summer months...

"eggs laid on droppings stuck to the rabbits bottom": yes, that's what I meant in my first post: its called 'myasis' or 'fly strike': rabbits are eaten alive by these maggots and die due to shock... :-(
but: my veterinarian rabbit book states, these maggots are from the eggs of the 'bottle fly'
(wellknown from cow-poop)
these very loud flies I'm sure I did not have in my room this summer (knock on wood).

thanks,
rob

[Gill Catton]

yes the eggs were visible with the naked eye -much less than 1mm in diameter and just over 1mm in length and seemingly mostly laid in groups though I couldn't tell you what layed them for certain - I too have only noticed housefly type beasties but the doors and windows are open in this weather so it could perhaps be something else....

re shavings vs hay I'm uncertain... Maybe someone else might know?

[nightshade]

Is it possible to get images of the maggots,are they the tiny carrot shaped ribbed type?, eggs are generally 1-2mm long and white to beige.There are very tiny caterpillars around
with a very black head ,some people do mistake these for maggots

[Imaginos]

Originally Posted by Alan

Hi nofly and welcome to WAB.

As far as I know, most maggots only eat infected decaying flesh.

Alan

Not true, fly larvae live on most substrate (depending on the species) eg mosquito larvae in water, leaf miners, dead-wood feeders etc.

[nofly]

Originally Posted by nightshade

Is it possible to get images of the maggots,are they the tiny carrot shaped ribbed type?, eggs are generally 1-2mm long and white to beige.There are very tiny caterpillars around
with a very black head ,some people do mistake these for maggots

as i have discarded my actual maggots *and* as i have a very simple digicam (shortest focus 70 cm's, no macro) it's not possible to post meaningfull pic's

the maggots are certainly fly-maggots, because: last week i found very immobile flies on the wall behind one of the rabbit-cages; i made them 'jump to eternity', but there was a steady input of new ones... i was a bit puzzled first... till i cleaned the adjacent cage and found a wealth of maggots creeping away as i took the straw out..
the combination "fly <> maggot" seems clear to me.
they (maggots) were about 10 mm. long, white and had a dark head or a dark spot on the head..
as i was a bit upset to find them, i didn't fondle them so i cannot yet give a more precise description

maybe someone can point me to maggot-pics in the net, maybe i can recognise them..

on the other hand: would it have been the horrible fresh-flesh-eating kind of maggot, my rabbits would hardly live at the moment...?!

[majikman]

i had the 'pleasure' of watching a green bottle lay a batch of rice like eggs on our cat's food.

it was laying them just out of view under a lump of food. The eggs where layed up on end.