OK, you coon trappers is this coon rubbed or does it have grubs... I have asked several guys around here and have gotten several different answers..

The hole goes all the way through the pelt, and looks like a spot cow's get when they have grubs...

Just wondering...







I thin the pelt is useless with the holes and bald spots...
Thanks for all replies..

Bullet, I think its grubs. That or a .22 hole. I had caught a coon this summer while doing some coyote adc work at a golf course. It had a hole similar, but there was something crawling in teh hole.


Put it up, it still might just get graded damaged and be worth something

GRUBS

I'd vote grubs on that one Blake !!!

Thats not a rub, but I have to say that is quite nasty!

Possibly Fighting wounds? Maybe? No? Ok

I'm with coon hangman, battle wounds from breeding if it was a boar. Could also be the start of mange. Ive skinned a few coon over the years and have never seen one with grubs. Hard to tell without a complete autopsy.

Hangman,

If it was fighting wounds, would he have scratches on it's face... I am thinking grubs... but wanted another opinion or ten or twelve..

When you speak of grubs are you refering to maggets that may have infested the wound or some other critter? I have skinned close to 12,000 coon in my life and have never encountered these grubs or is it something that exists in the south? Then again I have caught many coon in MS. and never saw them in coon down there either.

I see quite abit of coon like that ,usually late in the season.Also seen this on ferral cats and groundhogs.Grubs

yum made me hungry

Bullet, I'm betting its grubs. When I trapped in your area I caught several just like that. I caught a big jackrabbit one time down there, and it had a spot like that. As I layed it on the tailgate to remove the snare, the spot where the hole was started moving. I couldn't believe the size of the grub that came back out of that hole. Was the size of my thumb. It was the sickest thing I had ever seen.

some kinda parasite, but i dont know what to call it..

so i vote grubs.

charles

We must not have these so called grubs here or one would think I would have seen them by now.

These are the things that when I was a kid everybody called "warbles".They could be found on housecats,dogs,deer,cattle.....just about everything.In cattle they could mostly be found on the tops of there backs.A vet once told us they was caused by a type of fly laying an egg just underneath the skin.Don't know how much truth there was in that,but I've seen them all my life.

you beat me to it palerider. we call them the same here. Never seen them on a coon but git quite a few in the fall squirrel hunting. The say just cut the hole out and the meats fine to cook. That i dont know i throw the whole thing back for the varmits to eat.
I still remember the first time i saw one crawl out on a squirrel. Talk about givin you the chills. nasty

Yeah Dave, we must be too far north.

bullet holes?

What you guys are referring to are Bot Fly larvae they are not grubs. We call them Warbles in WV. The shoulder wound does not look like a warble mark possibly some kind of parasite or a bullet pass threw or bite but I don't think the type of warble we have here anyway. A warble will have one entry/exit point not 2 marks like the shoulder shows. I have never seem one in a coon. Squirrels are the predominant critter they prefer in my neck of the woods but they will get into rabbits and I have heard of cats and dogs getting them but have never actually seen it after a frost or 2 they vanish until the next summer. Early shot squirrels may have several on them some years. They are nasty looking boogers to.............

Thank you Palerider and oh trap, all this talk about grubs, and not one mention about a warble was starting to worry me. Same boat with the squirrels oh trap, they say the first frost kills em, ever hear that.

I figured it might be Bot fly grubs... may need to Ivomec the coons...

It is gonna be a pain to build a pen to hold them, and an alley to drive them down....

grubs

Dave..you have seen em in squirrels and rabbits that are killed too early in the fall I am sure, I have never seen warbles in coons and never after hard frost in anything....
Morgan

bobcatmatt, yep I have never seen one after the first frost.

bullet
those are probably the larvae of the heel fly. heel flies usually lay their eggs on the back of cows and calves legs in the spring . the eggs hatch and the larvae burrow through the hair follicle and migrate through the body to the back. there they cut a breathing hole in the skin and stay until they are mature. they come out of the skin and fall to the ground where they stay until they stay until they become a fly
sammy

grub

Sure could be Sammmy,

I know the heel fly sure give my cows fits...

Never thought about heel flies... just figured it was bot flies, but you maybe right...

Sure are nasty boogers...

Thanks for the reply...

Warble must be a different term for a maggot. Around here we call bot fly or any other fly larvae a maggot. My mistake. Yes I have seen them in squirrels and rabbits on wounds and we always called them maggots. Kind of like the east cost folks say there going into the woods, the midwest guy calls it the timber and the Alaskan says its the bush. All different words for the same meaning.