07/07/2026
I hope everyone is doing okay after this weekend’s storms. Several friends have reported damage to cars or homes and power outages here in Central PA, but thankfully, all have stayed safe from the storm. I’m very grateful that my home has not been affected.
While everyone cleans up, rebuilds and waits for the electricity to come back on, please welcome a new emergency foster, Abu.
Abu, maybe like you, also had a terrible weekend. Sometime during the storms, he found his way to a scarcely populated parking lot. Afraid, alone and covered in burrs, ticks, fly eggs and several maggots protruding out of his a**s (photos nested in the comments for any of you that can stomach it), he was picked up by a Good Samaritan who called Castaway’s operations manager, Jess, to see if we could help. Jess agreed to take him in. He is emaciated and dehydrated but has no wounds, thank goodness.
The question was posed as to why he had fly eggs and maggots if there was no signs of a wound. Fabulous question! Education Station- here we come!
Flys lay eggs not only on open wounds or irritated skin, but also on fur soiled by smelly things like f***s, urine or even saliva. Even a healthy long haired cat gets the occasional …for lack of a better word… di*******ry stuck in their fur on their behinds. So naturally, it would make sense that there could have been a bit of something smelly left behind on Abu’s ones… well… behind 🤷🏼♀️.
I’ve also had kittens whose siblings had a wound (or worse, the sibling was dead) and the healthy kitten ended up with fly eggs on them simply because they laid next to each other. There are many possible reasons why Abu ended up in this predicament, but regardless of why, he was in need of immediate intervention.
Why is it so urgent? Fly eggs take only 8-24 HOURS to hatch. Warmer and more humid conditions accelerate the timeline.
What happens after that is the part that many people don’t want to even imagine. If the eggs hatch on the animal, maggots feed on debris first but will rapidly burrow under the skin or into body openings (like the a**s, ge****ls, or ears), causing toxic shock, internal tissue damage, and death within hours.
A kitten with fly strike needs to have the eggs removed IMMEDIATELY. And a kitten with maggots might already be too far gone to save.
For this reason, Jess gave medication called Capstar that kills fleas, ticks and the maggots (which have stopped coming out hopefully because they are dead or all came out already) within 30 minutes. The fly eggs have also been physically removed. We are throwing all we have at this. And only time will tell if he’s going to be okay.
Abu was purring the entire way home from picking him up. I think that he knows that the good people at Castaway saved his life and now he’s safe. He’s been warmed up, has a good appetite and is snuggled in for the night in a makeshift incubator until the one Jess ordered just for him arrives at my house.
Nights like these, we hardly sleep. And every time we go to check in, we hold our breath and hoping he’s still alive, bracing for the worst. No matter where we end up, I know he has felt the safety, warmth and love that every creature deserves to feel.
As you go to bed tonight, send some good thoughts Abu’s way. We can use all the good vibes we can get!
