Gross Subject, Sorry

[Brandy DW]

So I was changing my ferrets litter today, and I happened to notice this white worm looking thing nearby. The more I searched around their cage, the more I found. I am 99.999 percent sure that what I found is fly larvae, which I'm also 99.99 percent sure were put to hatch in my ferrets poo as I cleaning it about every week to week and a half. With the way I have their cage set up with their litter it was big enough and got buried enough that I didn't think it was an issue. Obviously it was, because a fly nested in it. So I spent probably a good half hour looking around my basement (it's vinyl flooring) for these little buggers, thankfully because I do have Orkin for Spiders and other potential invaders (ie: crickets, flies, etc) - which actually the flies are dying fairly fast. Just apparently not fast enough. Yes I know this is really gross, trust me, try being the one to have to clean them up...

A) I will be obviously cleaning up the ferrets poo daily now, like I was before, regardless of how much of a pain in the butt it is, it's happening!
B) I'll be checking my cats litter box to see if potentially theres a similar issue but I seriously doubt it.

Now the whole reason why I posted this here, particularly in the health subform is from what I read online these things can carry a lot of diseases, certainly a lot for humans. I'm bringing my ferrets to the vet tomorrow (along with the baggy of some of the ones I collected) just to make sure it's not worms or something, all the evidence points to fly larvae though.

So I'm wanting to find out is with all the diseases these things carry for humans, how many do they carry for ferrets and cats? Trust me earlier I was freaking out a lot but I searched my upstairs (thankfully at least some is vinyl as well) and I didn't find any, and I also searched other parts of my basement and none there either. All of these were centered around my ferrets cage, or in the near vicinity. So while I likely did not get all of them, I'm confident that I at least got quite a bit of them and I know that the spray that Orkin put down for other pests has killed some of them too, they unfortunately were not all dead though. Right now I just want them to be gone, out of my house completely. I am so getting a fly swatter and killing them all whenever I see them - before I thought they were just annoying and knew to keep them away from my food - now I'm a bit more knowledgeable than I wanted to be on the pests (beasts) gah.

My skin feels like it's crawling even though i know for a fact nothing is on it... egh..

 

[WitchyWoman]

From http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG369/notes/house_fly.html​

"Flies constitute a health hazard as well as an annoyance. As they feed and breed in manure and garbage, these insects are likely to pick up disease-causing organisms. Such flies contaminate human food by crawling on the surface and depositing feces (dark spots) and regurgitated liquid (straw-colored spots). Diseases which have been carried by house flies include typhoid fever, tuberculosis, dysentery, polio, anthrax, diarrhea, yaws, cholera, conjunctivitis, trachoma, tapeworm, hookworm, and pinworm. House flies have been implicated in the spread of over 30 bacterial and protozoan diseases. Fortunately, house flies do not transmit many of these diseases with great frequency."
When you see your vet, ask if you should worm the ferrets and cats as a precaution.

 

[Brandy DW]

Saw my vet this morning with the ferrets. He did confirm they were fly larvae, and more less said not to worry about them since I cleaned them and the source (the poo) up, and just to make sure for a while I'm cleaning it daily. They won't travel more than 5 to 6 feet away from it usually and in my basement it's very unlikely. I picked up all the ones I could find last night, found two this morning when I checked but both of those were dead, likely from orkin's spraying. Tonight when I got home I checked all around the area and didn't find anything.

I've yet to find any type of fly in Sabriel's room, she's monitored when she's with me. I am thinking of getting her some type of flea/worm protection though, because of what I found out with my ferrets this morning.

I had an appointment with the vet for my ferrets before the larvae thing, because they'd been scratching like crazy and the last time I gave them a bath some very tiny things came off of them, I thought they were flea's or something related. Only I was never bit by them, and I never saw Sabriel scratching or anything either. So I called the vet, explained what was going on, and they told me to bring them in, they were just booked until now, I called them last friday afternoon. Anyway the vet used a very fine comb thing, got a specimen of hair and sample of whatever the creatures were and went and did something to find out what type of insect thing it was. Ended up being a type of mite that is species specific - gave them a 30 day dose of Revolution (for kittens and puppies) and said that would take care of it because the life cycle was shorter than that. I spent probably a good 20 minutes talking to him about different things but that about sums it up. As far as I know the fly larvae stuff is taken care of as long as I keep up on cleaning their poo, and I'm obviously going to keep an eye on things, and the mite thing is taken care of with the Revolution. Now I never want to hear of this stuff again ugh... (Oh he thinks the mites came from the breeder if anyone is going to ask that question.)

 

[Sue]

I'm glad you found them early before a fly infestation. About 35 years ago, we bought some carpeting to lay down on the floor of our house, we woke up the next morning to the entire house filled with flies. It was nasty. The flies had to be in that carpet. Sue

 

[Lori Greer]

The white worms are what we commonly refer to as maggots. LOL And yes, during summer months it seems if boxes and litter are cleaned and DUMPED regularly the things appear in just a few days. They also love trash or any other rotting foods, feces. They will go in to a pupa stage where they look like large rust colored mouse poop, and then they hatch....and you have tons of flies.

As for the mites, Revolution is one of the best anti-flea and anti-mite medication out there. It is used to treat a multitude of mites including earmites and both types of mange. I think your vet has set you on a good course.

 

[Brandy DW]

Still maggot free as far as i can tell, thank god. Yes I knew that fly larvae/maggots are one and the same but I kind of liked fly larvae more than maggot for some reason.

Anyway on the plus side my ferrets are scratching a lot less already, before every time I went to play with them one of them seemed to be scratching and now they're sleeping more and seem happier. I'm very, very happy that the vet was able to produce a fix so easily with that.

As for the other stuff that flies can lay their offspring in, I don't have anything else in my house that would be suitable for it. I'm a little afraid to open my garbage can that I put the bags of feces into though. Ugh!!! I'm certainly having it outside before I even open the lid... I'm sure the city dump has loads of them anyway..

Anyway I pretty much consider this subject closed!