Flystrike is one of the most painful conditions affecting sheep and requires integrated prevention through dagging, insecticide treatment, and selective breeding.
Flystrike welfare harm is among the most severe acute welfare emergencies in sheep farming. Affected animals suffer intense pain from larvae burrowing through skin and flesh, causing visible agitation, stamping, wool biting, and withdrawal. Without treatment, the condition rapidly worsens — larvae spread, toxins are absorbed, and systemic illness develops. Treatment involves removing all larvae, cleaning wounds, applying insecticide, and pain management — but recovery from advanced cases is painful and incomplete. Prevention is unambiguously preferable to treatment from a welfare perspective and requires an integrated approach including dagging of soiled fleece, targeted insecticide application to high-risk animals, and in the longer term selection of breeds with low susceptibility.