Chicken with sudden paralysis and tremors (and brittle / broken feathers)!!

[azygous]

If you go on Facebook and post photos and commentary, far more information about you is out there on the internet. We don't need your address and a map to your house. Knowing your state is enough if you're in the US because then I can provide you the name and address and contact info for the state lab that does animal testing. You will then need to figure out how far away it is and if you can drive there in one day or if you'll need to ask them how to ship the chicken.

When I use my state lab in Colorado, I'm lucky that one of them is around three hours driving distance. The advantage of driving the live chicken there is that they will euthanize the chicken for you and then have the freshest specimen to work on. Shipping the chicken requires you euthanize and ship immediately and hopefully it arrives before the tissues degrade too much to be able to test accurately.

 

[The_Chicken_Tender]

If you go on Facebook and post photos and commentary, far more information about you is out there on the internet. We don't need your address and a map to your house. Knowing your state is enough if you're in the US because then I can provide you the name and address and contact info for the state lab that does animal testing. You will then need to figure out how far away it is and if you can drive there in one day or if you'll need to ask them how to ship the chicken.

When I use my state lab in Colorado, I'm lucky that one of them is around three hours driving distance. The advantage of driving the live chicken there is that they will euthanize the chicken for you and then have the freshest specimen to work on. Shipping the chicken requires you euthanize and ship immediately and hopefully it arrives before the tissues degrade too much to be able to test accurately.

Fair enough. I'm in Washington state.

But I don't know if my course of action will change whether it's Marek's or the other virus, because neither have a cure, so there is not much to do either way. How did you keep your flock healthy?

 

[azygous]

Keeping a flock healthy with either of these two viruses is dependent on knowing which your flock is carrying. With Marek's, you can elect to cull the entire flock and wait a year or more, and start a new flock after you're pretty sure the virus has all disappeared from the soil. Or you can start a new flock by only buying Marek's vaccinated chicks.

With lymphoid leucosis, which my flock has, there is no vaccination, but new chicks will almost always develop resistance to the virus when you introduce them during their foirst two weeks when their immune systems are acquiring immunities. On the other hand, hatching chicks within the flock that carries the virus is fraught with dangers, and I've lost a number of chickens during the first year this way.

Therefore, knowing which virus you're dealing with absolutely helps you manage a flock so that chicken keeping can be a joy instead of a nightmare.

Let me get back to you in a few minutes with the lab info.

 

[azygous]

Contact us​

WADDL main laboratory (Pullman)​

Hours (PST): 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday
Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon deliveries only
Closed Sundays
Contact us 509-335-9696 or [email protected]
Mailing address: P.O. Box 647034 Pullman, WA 99164-7034
Directions

Avian Health & Food Safety lab (Puyallup branch)​

Hours (PST): 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday
Closed weekends
Contact us 253-445-4537 or [email protected]
Mailing address: 2607 W Pioneer Puyallup, WA 98371-4990
Directions

 

[SmiYa0126]

I've read through many posts on this site, there seems to be a common thread for curing it, hypericum. If your local health store has it, it may be worth trying to treat it.

For the poor feather quality, I have one hen that's hasn't molted until.this year, she's three this year. Well this year she got injured twice (she's fiesty) first her wing and then her leg. She was in a separate enclosure for over two months before she healed up, I had started to give her black oil sunflower seeds (non gmo) and she molted during this time, her feathers grew back wonderfully!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/non-emergency-mareks-homeopathic-treatment-video.290501/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-i-learned-to-deal-with-mareks-disease.76944/

 

[azygous]

Warning: Sermon.

There is no cure for Marek's. This is a scientific fact. http://extension.msstate.edu/publications/marek’s-disease-backyard-chickens People who report this or that homeopathic substance "cured" their chicken of Marek's cannot provide scientific evidence of this as there is none. When a chicken thought to have Marek's improves on a "cure", the chicken likely was not diagnosed with Marek's but instead was suffering from something else with similar symptoms. Marek's symptoms are similar to heat sickness, vitamin B deficiency, some forms of torticollis, and exposure to some toxins such as mold. Whether or not the chicken, whatever it was actually suffering from, improved with the remedy is also not provable. This is why new drugs get tested scientifically over a long period of time before they are approved to treat a disorder.

Treating your chicken with something you read about on the internet can be very dangerous and sometimes lethal. Around two years ago on this site an individual I had come to know and correspond with tried an herbal remedy someone on this site suggested on her ailing pet rooster. It killed him. We researched it and found it was highly toxic to poultry. It's a hard way to learn a lesson. Her rooster was one of a pair of pampered indoor roos that were members of the family.

Currently, I'm treating a rooster with squamous cancer with an herbal remedy so it's not as if I'm unreasonable about using these naturals meds. But I researched it as to its safety in poultry, found that scientific studies had conducted trials on live chickens for safety and effectiveness with some success before I gave it to my rooster. By the way, he's been given it for three months and his tumor is showing some slight signs of improvement.

Again, do not give your chickens anything someone suggests unless you research it first or they can provide that research as proof of its safety. Also, before you suggest to someone such a remedy, you do not want the guilt associated with suggesting something to another member and have it end up killing the chicken. That person who suggested the herbal remedy that killed my friend's roo has not returned to this site since this happened.

 

[SmiYa0126]

Thank you as always for your guidance!

Since the OP was saying that the hen was going to be put down, I thought I would post what I've read on Marek's on BYC as it has been a great source of guidance for my flock and is something I would try myself if I had something like this happen. Sometimes miracles do happen

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Thank you as always for your guidance!

Since the OP was saying that the hen was going to be put down, I thought I would post what I've read on Marek's on BYC as it has been a great source of guidance for my flock and is something I would try myself if I had something like this happen. Sometimes miracles do happen

Simply for my own knowledge, I took @azygous 's advice and looked up "hypericum safe for chickens". I find it interesting that hypericum is St. John's Wort, because I've previously read that St. John's Wort can be toxic to chickens. However, though I didn't research the issue in depth, St. John's Wort is anti-viral, which always always catches my interest since antibiotics are ineffective on viruses. Though I only briefly researched, there IS evidence that hypericum could be worth a try when a flock carries viral diseases, and if my flock carried a viral disease(s), I would do further research. Depending on what else I learned, I would be open to giving hypericum a try.
https://poultrydvm.com/supplement/st-johns-wort
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384280/

 

[azygous]

St. John' Wort was one of the things I tried when I had some five-month old pullets come down with paralysis and I suspected either Marek's or leucosis. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...update-now-another-pullet-going-lame.1432738/ Another thing I tried was the anti-viral herpes med acyclovir since Marek's is in the herpes virus family.

I can't recall all the meds I threw at this awful disease. but nothing worked, not even to improve them temporarily. None survived, including the fourth who survived a couple more years and she, too, became sick. During that period I had one of the pullets necropsied and it was confirmed to be leucosis, not Marek's.

But again, you shouldn't expect to find a cure for either virus when medical scientists haven't been able to find one. At best, you might stumble onto something that will relieve the symptoms temporarily allowing the chicken to have a little more quality time before the virus ends it.

 

[The_Chicken_Tender]

Contact us​

WADDL main laboratory (Pullman)​

Hours (PST): 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday
Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon deliveries only
Closed Sundays
Contact us 509-335-9696 or [email protected]
Mailing address: P.O. Box 647034 Pullman, WA 99164-7034
Directions

Avian Health & Food Safety lab (Puyallup branch)​

Hours (PST): 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday
Closed weekends
Contact us 253-445-4537 or [email protected]
Mailing address: 2607 W Pioneer Puyallup, WA 98371-4990
Directions

I really appreciate all your help. Sadly, she passed sometime during the night, which does not surprise me in the least. At this point in time, I'll probably hold off on the lab tests just because of life circumstances, but I'll definitely save these resources for future use. Again, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.