# Wow! That's a lot of veterinary work for one rabbit! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 23, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812 "2006-04-23T01:13:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/1 "2006-04-23T01:13:21Z")
[Veterinary care of a giant lop rabbit with severe fly strike](http://www.worldwidewounds.com/2006/february/Cousquer/Veterinary-Lop-Rabbit-Fly-Strike.html) from (I kid you not) World Wide Wounds I should be treated so well if I got a severe flystrike! ---
**Author:** ![Tortuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Tortuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tortuga)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/2 "2006-04-23T01:35:03Z")
Oh good g-d, the poor thing was being eaten alive. “Significant numbers of first- and second-stage larvae were present.”(!!!) Yes, I would hope that someone would take the time to dig the maggots out of my @ss too. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/3 "2006-04-23T07:26:47Z")
> [@Addicted to Love](#): > > Maggie: When I was a kid, my father had this dog that started to get all weak and sickly. He takes it to the vet, he examines it and says a maggot must have laid eggs in the dog’s butt. The baby maggots have crawled up, now they’ve started to grow, and eventually they’re gonna eat the dog alive from the inside. He says it should be put to sleep, because it’s an old dog anyway. But father won’t do it. He takes the dog home, he puts it on the bed, he reaches up into the dog, picking out the maggots with his finger, one by one. It takes him all night, but he gets every last one. That dog outlived my father. That’s love, Sam. Yay! That was actually an impressive page. It’s one of those where you’re not sure if you want to feel sorry for the rabbit or really happy that he got so well mended and cared for. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/4 "2006-04-23T07:37:44Z")
That’s so gross. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/5 "2006-04-23T12:36:48Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > … It’s one of those where you’re not sure if you want to feel sorry for the rabbit or really happy that he got so well mended and cared for. Zigzackly! My first thought was “oh ☹ not a happy bunny”, then I realised that it probably was very happy if a bit bemused after all the treatment,. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/6 "2006-04-23T15:04:29Z")
[It’s not easy being a bunny.](http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0394861027/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-6120385-2623848#reader-link) ---
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/7 "2006-04-23T15:36:56Z")
I didn’t realize that fly maggot would eat flesh off a living animal. Is it the same species as musca domestica? ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/8 "2006-04-23T16:52:58Z")
Blue Pitbull - Maggots usually just eat dead flesh, the problem is that on a living animal, once they’ve cleaned out the open wound, the flesh around it usually keeps dying so there is always more to eat. At some point I think they stop being too picky about whether the flesh is dead or not. They seem to think that buttholes are dead flesh - and the other openings in that general area. Sage Rat - I always hated that line from Addicted to Love. Maggots don’t lay eggs, flies lay eggs which become maggots. I’ve picked many a maggot out of wounds before. Somehow I always get stuck with that job, I think it’s because I’m the only one who doesn’t immediately start dry-heaving at the sight of maggotty wounds. I used to and still do sometimes but most of the time I’ve learned to disconnect my brain and just think about them as debris that needs to be cleaned from the wound - dsgusting wriggling debris. That’s what I get for my 20 plus years in the vet. tech. business - all the maggots I can pick. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-thats-a-lot-of-veterinary-work-for-one-rabbit/353812/9 "2006-04-23T17:21:08Z")
When my (now-deceased) mare had melanom, the flies would get into the gaping tumor and lay eggs. I kept trying to keep them out with fly sheets and an aerosol spray specifically for that, but finally my vet said to let them alone - they could clean out the dead tissue. We were trying to keep my mare alive long enough to deliver her foal, but the melanoma killed her about two weeks before we were going to deliver the baby by C-section. It was a long, hard, often disgusting journey that was ultimately fruitless. StG