Story: Diseases of sheep, cattle and deer

Fly strike

One of the most upsetting and horrifying problems that farmers have to deal with is fly strike in lambs. This lamb has advanced fly strike, with many maggots (fly larvae) visible and a large area of bare skin exposed.

Using this item

Natural Sciences Image Library of New Zealand

Reference: Ag1884Rbt.jpg

by G. R. Roberts

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How to cite this page

Gary Clark, Neville Grace and Ken Drew, Diseases of sheep, cattle and deer – Sheep external parasites and fungal diseases, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/17443/fly-strike (accessed 10 June 2026).

Story by Gary Clark, Neville Grace and Ken Drew, published 1 March 2009.

Comments

Bree
31 August 2011

It really is horriffic to deal with, i think the smell is worse than anything. Poor thing. I tend to clear the area and remove any maggots and eggs before crovecting the flock. Even so, the effects of the crovect seem to ware off after 24 hours especially if its wet, is there any way of keeping the flies off the lamb for long enough to let the area heal again?