Mareks

A 3 month old Orpington is walking on its hock on the right leg . A 3 monty old game hen rooster is walking on both his hocks and has hard time balancing and if he falls down has a hard time getting his legs back under him . A year old Plymouth Rock is having a hard time walking and balance . They all still have an appetite . I kept them all in the house first couple weeks until they were feathered a little bit and past the pasty butt stages. I have quite a few others that were in the same order as all of these but only three so far . I don't have any rotten meat or anything around or maggots . I keep everything pretty clean . They are free range all day and I lick them up at night. What kind of vitamins would you suggest I bought some rooster booster today at tsc

Sure sounds like Marek's.

What was going on with the birds the last couple of weeks? Were they being integrated into a flock? Often Marek's strikes juvenile birds that are under stress, though it can hit older birds too.

You may have had it in your flock for a while and it is just now surfacing in some individuals. And yes Marek's birds eat voraciously but lose weight, sometimes they have difficulty eating because their head starts to "twitch" and they can't manage to get the food in the mouth, usually if that is the case I wet their food down and gently guide/hold their head near the dish so they can feed themselves.

Some birds do fully recover but that seems to be rather rare. There are different forms of Mareks, some forms cause the bird to develop multiple tumors that can sometimes lead to a faster death, other forms don't cause tumors but damage the nerves and lead to long term (i.e. weeks or months) of paralysis.

Also if you want to have a bird tested do your own research regarding the type of test, I wasted $130 on testing when I lost the first Marek's bird, the test results came back negative and only later did I realize the necropsy only checked for visible lesions that often aren't present.
 
Last edited:
He wasnt
he wasn't NPIP Then, he lied to you and sold you sick birds.

The NPIP tests don't screen for Mareks so how can you say he was lying? There is currently NO quick test for Mareks.

And yes, he definitely is NPIP certified, he is listed on the state website as current.
 
No stress . The younger ones have a big fenced in area that they run around in . And the older ones free range on the place . They aren't really being integrated . As far as stress I can't think of anything, they are extremely spoiled
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom