Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Small Game It's gonna be a nasty warble year in Virginia

The squirrels around my house all have them. Never seen them as bad as this year. Usually I don't see them this developed until mid to late September. We've had some cooler weather lately that may have sped up developement. But almost all the squirrels around here have them. They don't hurt the meat and don't go any deeper than the skin, and the squirrels recover completely once they come out. But dam, they make for some ugly squirrels.

my grandfather used to call them "wolves"

Takes some good COLD weather to get them off. What causes them??? I have a lot of fox squirrels at one farm that are eat up with them.

It's caused by a big Bot Fly that bites them and lays an egg in the skin that developes into a larvae. They will develope and come out then burrow into the ground then emerge the following year as a fly. Here, they're still in the skin in Octrober.

Sounds like the zit from hell lol

Always heard the first frost kills then off. Anyone else hear this or any truth to that? Seems possible.

I feel sorry for the ones that have them. Must be uncomfortable as f*ck for the little buggers... We call them "wolves" here too.

Disgusting things. I've seen four on one squirrel before.

I had no idea that we had those things in this country! I’d read about bot flys in Africa, so this is a surprise.

What's grosser is that when you are getting ready to clean the dead squirrel, the bot fly larvae is sticking its air tube up through the pin hole.

Good part is, they are in the skin and it doesn't affect the meat. The other thing is, bot flies are native insects and this has been going on for eons. The squirrel doesn't have a disease. It's just the natural part of both critters lives. The squirrels heal up completely after the larvae come out.

Iam from Canada, the squirrels

didn't have them, but they bothered our cattle and came out along the back, sure ruined the hides for leather. Cheers NC

My mother told me that if you whack the cow hard with your hand beside the hole, the warble would pop out. Is that really true?

None of the approximately ten squirrels that feed in my yard have them. Hard to tell on rabbits with all that hair.

I thought a warble fly and a bot fly were two different Demons.

This is the Bot fly I have to deal with. https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef504

They don’t hurt the meat although it’s nasty as hell to see

Damn, you guys pass up that extra protein?

A killing frost will get them.

I'ze a tad squeamish.......

We call them 'wolves' in N. La. also, but until I moved to S. La. I had never seen them on squirrels. Rabbits yes. Need a freeze to get rid of them. That's why we dont rabbit hunt until deer season is over in Jan.

Yuk...

Squirrels seem to be able to exist with them tho...

From memory, they were pretty well history by the time the season opened.

Wolves here.. Last summer we had one boar squirrel that had four of them. One on his head, one between the shoulder blades and one behind each shoulder. We called him Quasimodo 😊

The ones affected that I've seen around my property seems to be healing up. Looks like they may be dropping out early. Last year they had them well into October.

I've shot 36 squirrels so far this season, starting beginning of Sept. and not one had a grub in it.

Warbles, Wolves, Cattle Worms, or whatever. They do not harm the host animal or it's meat. You can find them on any farm animal like cattle, horses, goats, and sheep as well as squirrels, rabbits and deer. They can cause big problems if they get in a horses mouth and digestive tract. I've even heard of them on dogs and coyotes. It's just really f^@king gross when you skin them.

I killed a deer in early season a few years ago and it was the first time I had ever seen them on a deer. She was covered with them and it freaked me out. We usually wait until after the first killing frost to hunt rabbits and squirrels for this reason. Here's their life span as I know it and these time frames may differ depending on where you live but it'll give you the gist of it.

March to April - Bot fly emerges from the ground and starts doing bot fly things.

May to June - Bot fly lays it's eggs on the host animal usually on the hair inside of the legs and other places.

A week or so later the eggs hatch and the small larva crawl down the hair and borrow under the skin.

July to the first killing frost - The larva grows under the skin and slowly migrates it's way up towards the top of the host animal.

After the killing frost - The larva emerges from the skin and drops on the ground and borrows under the ground where it grows into a fly during the Winter until it emerges as a new bot fly.

I heard a story on the Campfire one time. A member on here killed a deer early season and they put it in a cold box. They came back a few days later to cut it up, when they opened the door to the cold box, the floor under the deer was covered with larva.

Sure those weren't falling out of the nose? Deer get those nasty ass nose bots. They don't hurt the deer, but they are gross as hell.

Not sure, that was just a story that I read on here a couple of years ago when this subject came up. They probably do get in their noses, not sure. I do know that the larva come out through the skin when it gets cold.