- Aug 23, 2020
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Well, here's is another "My flock has Mareks 
" thread. I just received the necropsy report on Dec 27th so I'm just starting into my Mareks journey, doing a lot of reading, question asking, and freaking out, hoping, planning and scratching plans.
I have a few goals for this thread:
- Chronicle the flocks health going forward
- Receive input from other with Mareks experience
- Lay out my Next Steps (these I'm sure will change as I go! And please feel free to advise on these!)
- Share any previous bird losses that stand out and recieve opinions on if they could have been caused by Mareks, the goal here is to try and determine if I've had Mareks for years or if this is a new thing
First, a quick history of my flock, I'll try to keep it brief and avoid the chicken math rabbit hole side stories. I'll add more details on chicken losses in another post.
2020 - I bought 5 adorable chicks (3 BA, 2 GLW) from the farm store, the GLWs ended up being cockerels, I took them to a chicken swap along with 1 BA who sure looked like a cockerel, a kind man confirmed it was indeed a pullet and I took her back home, along with 4 POL GCs I had arranged to purchase from him and 6 guinea keets that somehow fell into my truck. Through the rest of the summer we purchased another 5 BRs, 1 RIR, a whoops Cornish X. With the exception of the guineas and GCs, all came from local feed stores. As of this post I've lost all 4 GCs (1 to predation), 1 BR (also predation) and just last week lost the RIR, and we processed the CX.
To note, the GCs were never super robust and healthy seeming, some days they seemed fine, others I'd think one was fading, but they'd turn around and start looking fine again. One would spend a week or so a little lethargic seeming, then perk back up. They had been raised in a huge poultry house, mayne 10,000 at a time, trimmed beaks and all that. I lost on that fall to a bald eagle (I have mixed feelings on this, I loved my chicken and was so upset to lose her, but bald eagles are also just amazing to watch and I feel like I contributed to the species...)
2021 - We weren't going to get more chicks, but somehow ended up with I think it was 13... a mix of EE's, BR's, RIR's, and BA's, all from the feed store that buys from Mt Healthy Hatchery, we've lost 1 EE, 1 BR, 1 RIR.
2022 - we bought no chickens!?! Craziness!
2023 - we weren't going to buy chicks, but I had an insistent BA broody so we broke down and bought her chicks, which freaked her out and broke her from being broody, so we raised 5 GLW's, 2 EE's, and 4 white silkies from TSC. No losses to date! The silkies just totally won me over so I bought eggs and hatched out 16 more, then when they were about 12 weeks old I bought 3 more chicks from the same breeder about the same age.
I don't know for sure if all the hatchery chicks were vaccinated for Mareks or not, but I know my home hatched silkies were not. I had a sikkie decline quickly in early Nov so we put her down, she was tiny, half the size of the others her age so I assumed it was a developmental issue / failure to thrive. At the end of Nov I had another silkie pullet start acting off balance, I dumped vitamins into her thinking it was a vitamin deficiency but she just slowly got worse. We culled her on Dec 10th and took her to the state lab for a necropsy on the 11th. Unfortunately, I had set eggs just after Thanksgiving, and I brought home 9 more silkie chicks from an NPIP cert breeder as well. I now have 10 chicks 1 to 2 weeks old (staggered hatch), so I have 19 chicks brooding in the house, unvacvinated.
Next Step:
Tomorrow all 19 chicks in the house are getting vaccinated. Yes, I know this may not 100% be effective, but if there's a chance it might help them, it's worth it.
- anyone have experience with vaccinating late?
" thread. I just received the necropsy report on Dec 27th so I'm just starting into my Mareks journey, doing a lot of reading, question asking, and freaking out, hoping, planning and scratching plans. I have a few goals for this thread:
- Chronicle the flocks health going forward
- Receive input from other with Mareks experience
- Lay out my Next Steps (these I'm sure will change as I go! And please feel free to advise on these!)
- Share any previous bird losses that stand out and recieve opinions on if they could have been caused by Mareks, the goal here is to try and determine if I've had Mareks for years or if this is a new thing
First, a quick history of my flock, I'll try to keep it brief and avoid the chicken math rabbit hole side stories. I'll add more details on chicken losses in another post.
2020 - I bought 5 adorable chicks (3 BA, 2 GLW) from the farm store, the GLWs ended up being cockerels, I took them to a chicken swap along with 1 BA who sure looked like a cockerel, a kind man confirmed it was indeed a pullet and I took her back home, along with 4 POL GCs I had arranged to purchase from him and 6 guinea keets that somehow fell into my truck. Through the rest of the summer we purchased another 5 BRs, 1 RIR, a whoops Cornish X. With the exception of the guineas and GCs, all came from local feed stores. As of this post I've lost all 4 GCs (1 to predation), 1 BR (also predation) and just last week lost the RIR, and we processed the CX.
To note, the GCs were never super robust and healthy seeming, some days they seemed fine, others I'd think one was fading, but they'd turn around and start looking fine again. One would spend a week or so a little lethargic seeming, then perk back up. They had been raised in a huge poultry house, mayne 10,000 at a time, trimmed beaks and all that. I lost on that fall to a bald eagle (I have mixed feelings on this, I loved my chicken and was so upset to lose her, but bald eagles are also just amazing to watch and I feel like I contributed to the species...)
2021 - We weren't going to get more chicks, but somehow ended up with I think it was 13... a mix of EE's, BR's, RIR's, and BA's, all from the feed store that buys from Mt Healthy Hatchery, we've lost 1 EE, 1 BR, 1 RIR.
2022 - we bought no chickens!?! Craziness!
2023 - we weren't going to buy chicks, but I had an insistent BA broody so we broke down and bought her chicks, which freaked her out and broke her from being broody, so we raised 5 GLW's, 2 EE's, and 4 white silkies from TSC. No losses to date! The silkies just totally won me over so I bought eggs and hatched out 16 more, then when they were about 12 weeks old I bought 3 more chicks from the same breeder about the same age.
I don't know for sure if all the hatchery chicks were vaccinated for Mareks or not, but I know my home hatched silkies were not. I had a sikkie decline quickly in early Nov so we put her down, she was tiny, half the size of the others her age so I assumed it was a developmental issue / failure to thrive. At the end of Nov I had another silkie pullet start acting off balance, I dumped vitamins into her thinking it was a vitamin deficiency but she just slowly got worse. We culled her on Dec 10th and took her to the state lab for a necropsy on the 11th. Unfortunately, I had set eggs just after Thanksgiving, and I brought home 9 more silkie chicks from an NPIP cert breeder as well. I now have 10 chicks 1 to 2 weeks old (staggered hatch), so I have 19 chicks brooding in the house, unvacvinated.
Next Step:
Tomorrow all 19 chicks in the house are getting vaccinated. Yes, I know this may not 100% be effective, but if there's a chance it might help them, it's worth it.
- anyone have experience with vaccinating late?
I have never dealt with Mareks in my flocks so I can't offer much in the way of Mareks knowledge. But if you don't mind my rambling thoughts, 
I can certainly offer emotional support as I certainly have dealt with my share of chicken illness and losses over my chicken keeping times. Our path in life can take us on many roads, some rough, some smooth as glass. There is no greater gift you can give yourself than learning, knowing more today than you did yesterday. And this Mareks journey will not only offer you the opportunity to be the best steward to your flocks, help then live healthier longer lives, but it gives you the opportunity to learn so much about the lives of your birds, what makes them tick, maybe allow you to understand what it's like to be a chicken. As scary as this Mareks sounds, you have the opportunity to really expand your poultry horizons. Maybe help you live in the moment, take one day at a time, case by case, bird by bird and I am sure at some point on down the line, this will all smooth out. Hopefully you won't view this as impossible mountains to climb but a few small hills or bumps in the road that are part of the journey. You can do it Tink, you are a strong gal! 
