Why Aren't the Walkers Getting Swarmed...

[Alexandria]

...with flies and carrion-eaters? You'd think with flesh rotting off them, flies, vultures, and other carrion-feeders would be all over them.

And the other thing I wonder about it how their vision is so good. The eyes are taken/rot pretty quickly after death, so how is it they can see the slightest movement?

[Ripley]

IMO, they would be and also the vision issue would exist, but since this is television, the insects, eyes and other things are as verboten as less than well-groomed characters. I just suspend my belief most of the time and laugh to myself...

[Tschandler]

It would be funny to see the prison group snare some coyotes as walker weapons.

[Will]

I always thought that they relied on their sense of both smell and hearing (they smell the living, and can things like gunshots).
as for flies and birds eating them it was shown in the first season but since then it's not shown.

[Ebradley127]

While it would make sense, there are simply some realities that can't make it into the show. People think they want realism, and they often point this kind of stuff out in a very "Ah-ha! That's not real!" fashion, but realistically:

1. Do we really want to watch all of our characters constantly swatting flies in every scene of every episode, even having dialogue nearly drowned out by the sound of them buzzing around? No.
2. Do we really want eyeless walkers chasing after our characters? Once in a while, maybe, but over all, no. "Eyes are the window to the soul." Part of what makes the walkers scary/creepy/disturbing to me is that they are kind of "one off" from the people they used to be. It's more dramatic to see people who look like people but aren't really people than it is to just see rotting skulls. The gore factor in the latter scenario would be upped, but gore isn't scary, it's just gore.
3. Do we really need our characters slogging through waist or chest high grass in every scene? No. There's been a lot of memes about who is mowing the grass in the apocalypse. It's true, the people of Georgia do mow their lawns when the show isn't filming. Yes, it should be unkempt and high. But from a logistical standpoint, it would be cumbersome and annoying. And in point of fact, they are never wading through deep grasses in the comics, either.
4. Do we really want to look at the actresses on the show running around with hairy legs and underarms? No. Technically not a one of them would have seen a razor in a very, very, very long time, and unless the lot of them all happened to have had electrolysis just before the ZA, they would all be looking pretty hairy at this stage of the game. I'm not even going to get into why no one wants to see that.
5. Do we really want to see everyone constantly stopping to clean off every splatter of blood? No. This show plays pretty fast and loose with bodily fluids even though they are dealing with a contagion. Sure, they know everyone is infected. But they don't know what else, besides an actual bite, transmits the infection and causes immediate illness/death. Is it blood-born? Who knows. But I don't think any of us want to spend most of each episode, following every zombie kill, watching everyone stop to try to disinfect every cut and scrape they have because they have gotten zombie blood in it.

There are no doubt other things, these are just a handful off the top of my head. Point being that there is a suspension of disbelief not even just for this show, but for television in general, because it isn't real, and while we need a certain amount of realism to get lost in the worlds being created for us, too much realism would simply overwhelm the ability to tell the story, or the ability to us to become engaged in watching it.

[jcooper]

that's a lot of flies to cgi

[crossbow_crazy8469]

127 up there said it pretty good. But with the eyes, I'm not sure they really depend on them as much as their nose. Remember in the 1st season when Rick & Glenn put the walker guts & blood all over themselves to walk through all those walkers? The walkers looked straight at them and didn't try to attack until it started to rain. Also, I don't think Michonne's pets were only there to carry her stuff, I think they were there for their charming moldy skin, rotting flesh scent too.

[ABC]

Well, if you think about it.. There would probably also be flies flying all over the 'survivors' also.. They haven't showered in awhile.. :-/

[Ripley]

Well, if you think about it.. There would probably also be flies flying all over the 'survivors' also.. They haven't showered in awhile.. :-/

And I would be choosing to sleep in a tent on the prison roof, myself ! I expect we'll see a "magic" pump station fix that enables the survivors to use the showers

[Coachwhip]

We could go with the Max Brooks excuse: whatever virus/bacteria/cosmic radiation that causes the dead to rise, is repellant to critters, fungi and bacteria......the repelling of bacteria and fungi part also helps explain why it takes years (instead of weeks or months) for the walkers to decompose.