Maggots found in ferret cage?!

Question

Cloud and Bandit   So i have had my female fert (Cloud) for about 4 months and my male fert(Bandit) for about 2 months and have never faced the problem of maggots in the cage. I happened to notice them today when i went to put fresh water in their cage. I immediatly took both the food dish and water dish out and cleaned an santized them along with emptying the whole cage and cleaning it and also sanitizing it. But im worried if one of my ferts may have eaten a maggot not realizing it and im worried the maggots might come back. I clean their cage once a week so it makes me wonder exactly how these maggots got into their cage and how it happened over night. I just dont want anything to happen to my ferts because there like my children. They are also quite young the female is 6 months and the male is only about 4 months. Im probably overreacting but i just wanna make sure that these maggots didnt harm them and dont want them coming back. Thank you :)

Answer
Hi Nikole:

Most likely the maggots are coming from the bag of food.  Maggots are basically the larvae (infant stage) of flies. Flies lay their eggs, they hatch into maggots,  then into flies (kinda like butterflies). So, unless you have a terrible fly problem i  your home (actually one fly laying maggots can start a whole colony.and if you do not find the cause soon, you will be inundated with baby flies.  Not fun. So, I would check the food bag first, then if needed return it to the store if its new, or dump it out and get fresh, then always keep the bag sealed to prevent further infestations.

Since ferrets are obligate carnivores (meat eaters), if living in the wild and they got hungry, maggots just might be considered a treat, so no worries about them making your ferrets sick, but ir is a good idea to get rid of them as soon as possible before they become a houseful of flies.

Hope that helps :-)

Sincerely,

Jacquie Rodgers