Cuterebra "warbles" - Page 2

I had one on my horse one time too and made the mistake of squeezing it out.
I literally almost dropped dead of heart failure due to the grossness of what came out. I never would have expected "someTHING like that " coming out of a live animal.
There is a fly repellant I buy from Omaha vaccine, that works extremely well. It says for dogs too.
It works for two weeks with one application, kills fleas too.
I use it WITH the advant -.
As soon as I go look it up, I will let you know the name of it.
It's time to get some anyway.

never knew about these things....sounds really bad...i will be carful :|

If you find a large adult warble, the best thing to do it to take the animal to the vet to have it removed.  The vet will tranquilize the animal, some will use a local, and cut notches around the edge of the opening to enlarge it so they can grasp the warble with tweezers or a stat and pull it out whole. You don't want to  leave any of the warble inside the "crater" or an infection will set in. Squeezing isn't a good way to get the entire warble out. Warbles can grow quite large while living on the host; all one can see through that hole is the warble poking its head out the opening. The horse fly repellent should be safe for dogs, not sure about cats. And, yes, they are very gross.

I am one of those people who's fascinated by nature. When our cat started to show great interest in our neighbour's toolshed, which was right up against our fence, I knew there were likely mice in it.

I set a live trap, and caught a deer mouse. When I looked at it, I saw it was male, and there was SOMETHING poking its head out of one side of his scrotum.

I grabbed a pair of tweezers and PULLED, and out came this huge, ugly warble larvae!

I took it to an acquaintance who worked in the entomology department at the Royal Ontario Museum, and he identified it as a species that infected rodents, and would migrate to the scrota of male animals to complete its life cycle. I don't want to know what it does when it infects a female of the species..

Because of its habits, the scientific name is Cuterebra emasculator!    (Though it doesn't actually damage the testicles.)

The mouse didn't take kindly to me removing the bot, and managed to escape. My parents were NOT HAPPY!

My grandmother was living with us at the time, and it wound up in her little apartment (her cat noticed it) and I was able to live-trap it again and release it outside.

My mom was not into nature. And yes, I was quite a trial to her when I was growing up!  


Blitzen, the form of the bot that infects other animals is the larval stage, not the adult. The larva molts 3 times before reaching maturity, then drops to the ground and burrows into it. It pupates, and emerges as an adult fly the following spring.

This is new to me, & disgusting! Warbles? I thought you all were kidding.. Yech! Something else to check for! jackie harris

Jackie, I surely wish I was joking LOL. I was expecting a little abscess with some green gunk, or some cheesy white stuff, but it was neither. I'm sure Hubby and Paul will never let me live that one down.

Melissa

Melba I can't imagine! Sure gives me the heeby-jeebies! Yuck! Kudos to you for being able to deal with it!
jackie harris

I've never had them in my dogs but i have had them invade my mouse colony and i've seen lots of them on squirrels and rats. In fact in florida if you see a rat during the day in the warmer months it has warbles.
Mature larva that are ready to pupate are as large as the first digit of your thumb. Nasty disgusting things that come from a rather harmless fluffy fly. I'm not squmeash but it must really suck to have something that large eating you alive. If the flys were in proportioned to humans it would be like a possum under your skin eating you from the inside out. Horrid! My vet says that a great way to remove the is to use a coke bottle over the hole and pop the bottom of the glass, the fly in land in the bottle. Honestly in bigger animals they don't seem to do much harm. And they often over winter in the stomach of horses and cattle. Ivermectin kills them.
Bots are annoying but Screw worms can kill animals. Another aggressive fly larva.
Fry

Fry, that is what my husband said about the bottles (which was how he knew what it was.. hidden inside info lol).

Jackie, I don't know that I would have dealt with the nasty little critter if I had known what it was!! Would have been hi-ho hi-ho off to the vet we go!

Melissa

When I was really young I had gone to camp, the camp had horses and as horse loving tomboys tend to do I volunteered to muck out stalls just to be close to the horses. One day while mucking stalls the stable boss came in with a coke bottle with just a little left in it. He downed what was left, walked over to the horse, positioned the opening of the coke bottle over a lump on the horses front shoulder and suddenly slapped the hell out of the bottom of the bottle. He swabbed some purple stuff on the hole that was left on the shoulder and showed me what was in the bottle. It was an ugly ugly thing.. he said it came from bot flies. eww makes me shiver even thinking about em. I have seen the lumps on horses since but the owners have always called a vet out. One of the reason around here they only hunt in the months with R in it is due to the "worms" it is not unusual to find the lumps on deer or rabbits early in the hunting season while it is still fairly warm. Kinda disgusting to be skinning a deer and have the larvae pop out lol

Hey Mel :) I need to catch up with you, I have someone in NC looking for a young rescue GSD and willing to pay transport etc.