can adult chickens be vaccinated for marek's?

[yo burrill]

Unforunatly the marek virus attacks the body the same way HIV does in humans. Once you understand that you must realize that any vaccinating after they have been exposed is futile as the very cells that are needed to react to the vaccine has already been compromised by the Mareks. Chicks only respond to the vaccine in the first three weeks of life. And only if they have not been exposed already. By five weeks old they virus has already done most of its damage to the immune system of the chick. Which then leaves them open to any other diseases on your property. I brought in a hen who had marek. My others caught it and then could not fight off a minor respiratory bug. I lost all my younger birds. The rest that still showed the respiratory issues got culled. I have just seven birds left that showed no sickness. I am waiting for hatching eggs then I have to cull them too and clean before the eggs hatch. My chicks will be vaccinated from now on.

 

[belcherbirds]

Hi everyone! I know this is an old thread however it's full of so much experience I am brand new to chickens and have had my new chicks for about a week. They were 4 days old when I brought them home from a breeder. I gave them them Mareks vaccine yesterday even though they are 10 days old or so and want to do the cocci d2 vaccine a s well. Does anyone know if I can do it now?? Can they take a second vaccine so close together?

Thanks a million!

 

[julsmc]

I am adding a 3 month old pullet that has not been vaccinated to my flock. Should I get it vaccinated or is it too late?
I am going to bath her and quarantine her. Very worried!!!

 

[CrazyTalk]

Vets will recommend you vaccinate for everything under the sun. I personally think that too much babying doesn't let them build a strong immune system, so when something comes along, they quickly get sick.

If you think this, and are advising against vaccinating, I have to assume that you don't know how vaccines work.

Vaccines are essentially an injected irritant, usually either a denatured, or dead copy of the virus (or protiens that are part of the virus) and your immune system fights them off - it's literally working out your immune system. Vaccines make the immune system stronger.

 

[seminolewind]

I am adding a 3 month old pullet that has not been vaccinated to my flock. Should I get it vaccinated or is it too late?
I am going to bath her and quarantine her. Very worried!!!

It's too late to vaccinate. Bathing and quarantining will not get rid of Marek's. If you're worried about getting Marek's in your flock, you should not be adding any chicken to your flock except hatched by you, or day olds from hatcheries.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
X2 !!!! Some illnesses are not worth the risk to see if they survive it. Or, like Marek's the only way to build their immune system aside from vaccinating is to expose them to the real disease-which there is no cure for.

 

[estamets]

I'm chiming in, just for fun! I've lost 2 of my six - 5 month old birds in the last month to Marek's. The losses were devastating.

I've got 7 chicks in the brooder, all between 1 and 4 weeks old. I'll be vaccinating ALL my birds tomorrow. Even if they have been exposed (the older birds have, obviously), I will have enough vaccine for all of them, and, from what I can tell, the vaccine has no side effects that should deter me from giving it to them. It may be ineffective at this point, I understand that, but if $40 ($20 vaccine + shipping) saves the life of even just one of my birds, it's worth it.

On that note, does anyone have info or ideas on dosing for larger birds?

 

[seminolewind]

I am pretty sure the dose is the same for all.

I'll bet if the price of the vaccine for 1,000 chicks is $40 incl shipping, if they sold the vaccine for 25 chickens, it would be almost the same price, LOL.

 

[estamets]

I just vaccinated my babies, and went ahead and did the two un-vaccinated POL girls, too. With my husband's help (he held, I poked), we got all 9 birds done in 20 minutes with no difficulty. It may be too late for all of them, since they've probably already been exposed, but if the $40 + 20 minutes of my life saves even one of my girls, then it's worth it.

I plan to re-administer in ten days, since I've seen that recommended. I saved half the vaccine (actually split it 4 ways and shared with a friend!), so it will be easy to go through this process again.

In the future, I will order the vaccine a week in advance of any planned chicken arrivals, and vaccinate immediately.

Best of luck to everyone - this disease is truly devastating, and if we can fight it, we should.

 

[speckledhen]

I realize this has been mentioned previously here, but it might bear repeating that the vaccine available to the general public is not the same as the one the hatcheries give and not as effective. This is per the state vet in Georgia as well as the vet at the University of Kentucky. The "good" one must be stored at almost -200*, which we simply can't do. The Univ of Ky guy was even a bit scornful about the effectiveness of the consumer's vaccine. I'm still vacillating on this vaccination thing, personally. I mean if it hides the disease of an infected bird by keeping it alive and preventing tumors, you still have an MD positive bird. Still wrapping my head around this one. Yeah, I know, we've been around and around on the subject, but it still bugs me. Have to get it straight in my head. If I can't keep it out of my flock no matter what I do, I guess might have to start keeping a species that is not as susceptible to it. It's getting too complicated. I can't do complicated. And I haven't even had to deal with it yet, but it's already making me nuts just talking about it. Karen knows, right, Karen?

Someone mentioned TSC chicks being the cause of Marek's in their flock. I'd say if they truly were the cause of the Marek's in their flock, it was contracted from the way TSC handles the chicks and customers go in and out and sometimes were able to handle them, not the hatchery to blame. Marek's is not passed through the egg so if the chicks hatch and are mailed out to the feed stores immediately, as they are, I'd say it is not the hatchery but something that happened at TSC or later on. JMHO.