Well it's finally squirrel season now in SC and they have been visiting my oak trees but I've been frustrating myself missing. Several of the shots I could not see the squirrel clearly and should not have taken the shot. Like this morning. I thought the squirrel was in the crotch of a tree and shot at what I thought was the squirrel and hit the tree. I saw it run off. But an hour or so later it or another one was back in that same crotch and I didn't hit it as far forward as I wanted but I got it. I could see it this time. It had three parasites of some sort in it's skin. You can see them bulging the skin out in the first picture and the third picture is one that fell out when I was cleaning the squirrel. Looks like some sort of worm but really short and fat. The first picture also shows some intestine from the exit of the pellet. The bloody side is the entrance side. This is the ninth squirrel I've shot with my P35 in 177 that shoots H&N Baracuda Match 10.6 grain at about 900 fps. About the only good thing about my shot placement is it shows my 177 will take them even with poor placement. I will continue to try and do better but a 177 works. The squirrel took a few steps up the tree after impact but fell pretty quickly. It weighed 1 lb on my fish scale and was 22 yards away at a 30 degree angle up in a tree.
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Ugly shot, Ugly squirrel but I got em
- Thread starter JimD
- Start date
Squirrel botfly larva, nasty looking things.
en.wikipedia.org
Cuterebra emasculator - Wikipedia
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I see them in rabbits once in a while-fugly for sure! But then few wild animals go to the vet....
Here's an informative page about them.
squirrel-bot-flies-fact-versus-fiction/
Here's an informative page about them.
squirrel-bot-flies-fact-versus-fiction/
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Thanks for the information. I was unsure about keeping the meat until I saw that the larva was just in the skin, it did not go inside the squirrel. But it was still a bit creepy. I sent the one that is in the picture down the garbage disposal.
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There are several types of botflies. I think that the squirrel type are also the ones that get on cats occasionally too and the cats claw at them until they get an infection going. I have a kitten now that I brought inside that had one on her neck, the wound has just completely healed and the fur recovered the spot. Running pus until I removed the bot, flushed the wound with peroxide and put antibiotic ointment in the hole. I've done that a few times for outdoors cats. I hate nasty parasites. Yuck!
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Clean your animal. Cut away any spoilage (there is usually a hard patch under the skin). Continue to march. That problem goes away after cool weather sets in. Very common in warm climates.
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A few years back WV changed opening day from mid-October to mid-September, I thought I would see a lot of warble-infected squirrels, but surprisingly, I have not. When I was a kid our neighbor would operate on our cats like Filnez was saying.
I harvest several squirrels a year and have only found one warble in the last few years & that was enough.
I harvest several squirrels a year and have only found one warble in the last few years & that was enough.
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I already ate that one. Tasted fine. The larvae were kind of gross but they were only in the skin. They did not affect the meat at all.
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