Human anti-viral meds for Mareks -- has anyone else tried this?

[Sonya9]

This spectrum of care - from immediately culling at first sign of illness all the way to the other end of caring for a paralyzed hen for a year or more.....is so difficult to evaluate for me. Rationally, I want to go to the old farmer saying, "the best cure for a sick chicken is a spade" but emotionally I'm much closer to doing everything I can.

When this bird was really bad (not eating and seizuring for 2 days without movement) I felt guilty for not taking her to the vet to be euthanized (I couldn't do it myself, I have plenty of tools such as firearms but can't bring myself to use them on animals, least of all my own). Then she started to get better, and has steadily improved ever since. She obviously wants to live, so I am doing my part to give her that chance.

I have noticed the "shovel" crowd often seems to get downright angry when others choose to show compassion and care for their sick birds, they claim to believe not treating and just culling is "better for everyone" as if it would make a difference even with extremely widespread diseases like Mareks.

 

[soundshores]

Thanks for the video. My poor Rooster also has this. I've been giving him Colloidal silver solution in his canned pumpkin mix with oats which he loves. He has survived like this about 5 weeks now, but the paralysis is not getting better. Do any birds survive this and can they regain the use of their legs or is it always fatal.? I have him isolated, but I fear it has already spread to my 6 hens. I lost one a month ago and did an autopsy. She had a huge yellowish tumor in her abdomen. I have since read this was probably mareks too. Now one of the others is not well. Both these hens were almost 3 years old. . The younger ones were vaccinated , so hopefully they won't get it. Do you know if all members get sick or will they just be carriers?

 

[Sonya9]

Do any birds survive this and can they regain the use of their legs or is it always fatal.

Some birds do go into remission and fully recover (according to Mississippi State University). I would imagine it may depend on the type of Marek's too.

 

[Sonya9]

It did do my heart good to find them happily ensconced together in a little secret spot where there was still plenty of sunlight and shelter but more safe from their perspective than out in the open where I had left them. They are not stupid! In fact considering their poor mobility I was amazed that they had found such a perfect spot in the limited area I had given them.

I know what you mean about being wary of official inspection and I'm possibly of a similar mind with regard to human vs animal welfare.

That is an encouraging sign. If they can walk/crawl that far they have a fair amount of strength and a good attitude. When I put the bird in the chicken run I put a pen around her as the others would bully her or eat all of her food.

I do think the sunlight and a bit of ground/grass is important not only for health (vitamin D) but to ward off depression/stress.

One benefit of this whole nightmare is that I have made a new friend, I am pretty much a yankee hermit living in a small southern town. I have a lot in common with the lady my vet introduced me to, we plan to visit a nearby hatchery next weekend to see their fully vaccinated birds (we are both yankees with 6 dogs and sick chickens so there is plenty to talk about).

 

[rebrascora]

Hi soundshores

Sorry to hear you have a rooster in a similar condition. Unfortunately, the longer it goes on the less chance of a recovery but I have certainly had 2 cockerels that went lame with it and now you cannot tell which ones they were. I had a pullet like you that was very bad and I culled in the end. She had a huge yellowish tumour on the abdomen and another on her leg. I already had 2 other lame birds and she had presented initially with lameness but paralysis spread rapidly with her. That was the point at which I realised that it was Marek's.

Of my 2 pullets currently in sick bay with it, the worst one had an attack 2-3 months ago which lasted about a week. She completely recovered but has recently had another attack (at least I assume it was the same one as she has a sister and I can't tell them apart) and today I saw her walk a few steps for the first time in probably 3 weeks. The other one in sick bay went lame 4 months ago and has learned to hold her bad leg up and hop. It took weeks of tripping over her own foot before she developed the technique (I tried making a brace and a boot for the bad foot but nothing I did worked) She is amazingly agile now. Her petite size (also a sign of Marek's) means that there is not too much strain on her good leg. She would probably be better off with the bad one amputated but I couldn't sanction that. Anyway, both are bright eyed and eat well and one is even laying an egg every other day so I couldn't possibly give up on them yet.

Anyway, yes from what I have read, the ones who don't show symptoms may well be carriers and as it is so easily spread, separating the sick ones is unlikely to make any difference unless you practice strict bio security as it can be carried on your clothes, skin and hair. The vaccinated ones can still get it but are unlikely to develop tumours and die.

As regards the old farmer taking a spade to a sick chicken....Animal welfare is a luxury of modern day society I think. Most of us (hobby poultry keepers) can afford to be kind as there are less economic pressures on us than 100 years ago. I think back to my grandfather who had 9 children to feed. My grandmother was crippled and he worked as a miner and produced food for them on his allotment in his spare time and the children all had to help. Times were very hard then. No welfare support and very low wages for a dangerous job. There was no time or money to care for sick chickens.....little enough to care for sick children. If they didn't lay, they got eaten.

 

[Sonya9]

Animal welfare is a luxury of modern day society I think.

I believe it is a side effect/benefit of having one's own survival needs met. It is not a new thing, I recall that even 2 thousand years ago a Roman wrote a letter complaining about the fact that well off Roman women preferred to coddle their pets instead of having children (the decline in birth rate was a problem in Rome at that time).

The government decides which humans receive welfare (and we generally have no say regarding where our tax dollars go) but I decide how my animals will be treated in my own home.

 

[chooks4life]

As regards the old farmer taking a spade to a sick chicken....Animal welfare is a luxury of modern day society I think.

I agree with Sonya9, it's certainly not a new thing at all. These days cull-and-replace is far more popular than it ever was; back then, it was a staggering loss of a precious resource which could not easily be replaced.

In many ways the 'primitive' or early farmer went to greater lengths than the average modern commercial farmer. Bit of a broad generalization there, but they certainly didn't have our access to hatcheries and breeders mass producing cheap animals.

All over the world, anywhere humans have kept animals, there's history dating back many thousands of years detailing how they treated their animals using herbs, splints, containment, and so forth. When one animal (i.e. a dairy cow, or a draft horse, or even one hen) could represent the potential for future survival of a whole family, there was no such blase attitude about culling it at the first sign of trouble. That attitude cropped up after the advent of modern agriculture, when suddenly owning animals while knowing nothing much about their care was more accessible to anyone who wanted a go, since replacements were suddenly far easier to come by. Animals have repeatedly been regarded as more important or valuable than humans in many cultures. Quite often preference was given to them when food became scarce just to ensure that they would survive and thereby could contribute to feeding the whole family in future. Human lives were regularly lost for the sakes of animals, defending them from predators or thieves. They were quite valuable overall.

Some of the herbal treatments we use today date back thousands of years as well, and most of them (as far as we have any records about the matter, anyway) were discovered by observing animals self-medicating, then trying those herbs on humans for the same ailments. We still have records of many herbal treatments for a huge variety of ailments in animals, from cultures around the world, which modern science is now verifying. I.e. the Romanian gypsies used valerian root for epilepsy and neurological disorders; decades after being pooh-poohed at by the first groundswell of what would become modern science, we now know why, as we're identifying the compounds in that plant that helps the neural system. Juliette de Bairacli Levy for one example traveled the world collecting that sort of ancient info and published it in her book 'The Herbal Handbook For Farm And Stable'; it's an interesting read. I've found that so far, the treatments I've tried from that book work, not that I've tried many, but I've used it against things like cases of advanced parvo, bacillary white diarrhea, tuberculosis in turkeys, etc.

Some modern diseases aren't anywhere near the problem we make of them, the current mortality rates attributed them are actually more like husbandry faults than measures of how terrible and rampant the contagions actually are. I.e. coccidiosis... Ancient farmers used raw garlic to prevent and treat it. Works like a charm in my experience, 100% success rate for all the years I've kept chooks thus far, it's almost baffling that it costs the poultry industry so much every year and we develop drugs and vaccines to counter something so simple to defeat and prevent. Marek's is another one of those diseases which is totally blown out of proportion and in my opinion often mismanaged into becoming a bigger problem.

We're currently in a bit of a boom of re-discovering the herbal treatments that were thrown by the wayside after modern agriculture as we know it (thankfully it's developed into a more advanced and open-minded form now) first gained its popularity. It's worth remembering a lot of the breeds we have today owe much of their best attributes re: hardiness and parasite and disease resistance to the keeping methods and breeding choices of our forerunners, which did involve culling the weak, but they were far from the cull-happy lot they're often depicted as and often went to great lengths to save their animals.

Sorry for the small novel. The concept of early farmers as being so swift to cull is something that's extremely widespread but quite erroneous, so I'm trying to do my bit to alleviate that issue.

Best wishes.

 

[Sonya9]

I agree with Sonya9, it's certainly not a new thing at all. These days cull-and-replace is far more popular than it ever was; back then, it was a staggering loss of a precious resource which could not easily be replaced.

Very true, if famine strikes certain modern day cultures the livestock eat before the children; in some areas of the world with high birth rates people can always have more kids but if the livestock dies they may never be able to replace them. Most folks would be shocked to learn that goes on because it is rarely ever discussed; people like to believe all humans have the same universal value system when it comes to animals/children.

 

[lalaland]

am really enjoying this discussion and info.

With mareks, it seems the immune sytem becomes compromised leaving the chicken extra vulnerable to enteritis, cocci, etc. I have been dosing with tumeric but have been informed of the high lead content so am reevaluating that. Can't afford high quality organic tumeric presumably lead free.....

Chooks4life, how are you using the garlic? as a treatment or as a preventitive? I am not consistent with garlic when there isn't a problem - would be interested in how you use it. I am ignorant about dosage and using too little or too infrequently is probably just as unhelpful as not using it at all?

 

[chooks4life]

Very true, if famine strikes certain modern day cultures the livestock eat before the children; in some areas of the world with high birth rates people can always have more kids but if the livestock dies they may never be able to replace them. Most folks would be shocked to learn that goes on because it is rarely ever discussed; people like to believe all humans have the same universal value system when it comes to animals/children.

True, it's a pretty murky issue in terms of education on it, it's generally presented as being factoids on the past rather than current issues. Sounds quite brutal and it is, really, but it's also extremely unvarnished logic. Adults need to eat before children because without them there are no children. Livestock need to eat before children because without them there'd be no adults or children. As you say, people can always have more kids but can't necessarily ever replace the livestock.

And of course there's those other cases where livestock are currency and status rolled into one, unlike children, so the children are devalued based on that more than any actual necessity. The status of children versus chickens in some eastern countries is quite horrible, where children starve just so a prize rooster can have his accustomed pampering and expensive treats. In those cultures it's publicly acceptable to state that one loves their bird more than their family.

am really enjoying this discussion and info.

With mareks, it seems the immune sytem becomes compromised leaving the chicken extra vulnerable to enteritis, cocci, etc. I have been dosing with tumeric but have been informed of the high lead content so am reevaluating that. Can't afford high quality organic tumeric presumably lead free.....

I hear it's very easy to grow, and only a bit of trouble to dry and powder. Going to have a go at that myself hopefully.

Chooks4life, how are you using the garlic? as a treatment or as a preventitive? I am not consistent with garlic when there isn't a problem - would be interested in how you use it. I am ignorant about dosage and using too little or too infrequently is probably just as unhelpful as not using it at all?

No, even using it once in a blue moon is better than never. Thus far, I've never had to use it as treatment because I've never had a case of coccidiosis in chickens (or anything else, turkeys, guinea fowl, geese, rabbits, sheep, goats, and more). I've been keeping animals since I was a child so that's been many years now, and I take in a lot of damaged or sick infants and adults alike so it's been a wide test subject pool including some extremely vulnerable individuals.

Garlic appears incredibly effective as a preventative even if I only feed it once every month or so.

I used to be very consistent with it, until I began testing longer and longer periods without it to see how often they really needed it and how much they needed. (The answers appear to be 'not much at all and not very often' --- one clove per chook per week will show steady results but you can go longer than that between doses). Things became so smooth sailing that I became blase about disease risks to be honest!

I wanted to know what in their diet and environment was responsible for what benefits, and what was a maintenance dose rather than a treatment dose, so I've tested on and off throughout the last decade-plus with removing things from their diet and environment and replacing them later and keeping track of results.

Kelp and garlic in the diet, no pellets/mash/crumble, soaked grains, and healthy deep litter soil are probably the most important things to maintain in my experience, free ranging is also very beneficial. Altering those staples has always shown a lessening of health. (To me, paler faces is as far as I let it get before I consider it a bad trend and try to address the issue. I don't wait for problems to occur, I try to focus on prevention. I'm very fussy about face, comb and wattle color, if they're anything less than glow-in-the-dark fluorescent red (lol, ok, tomato red for hens and cherry red for roosters, in chickens of pale skin types) then I consider something needs addressing).

The only disease issues I've had in non-adult chickens thus far have been a few cases of avian leukosis virus and one case of bacillary white diarrhea. Lost the ALV cases (very acute form due to extreme genetic susceptibility) and eradicated the susceptible lines, no problems since, and saved the BWD case (honey, raw milk and slippery elm bark powder internally, and paw paw ointment on the vent for the external damage, took 48 hours to clear all symptoms).

I have not used an artificial incubator or tried to rear chicks indoors yet, which likely has something to do with it too, since that seems to be the most immunologically vulnerable way to raise them. If I took some eggs from my own hens and tried to do that with them, without using garlic for their first month... I'd consider it a probable risk to the chicks' lives and would expect coccidiosis to occur.

The zero coccidiosis rate is likely based on a few husbandry habits or other factors as well, so I'll list them just to try to cover all bases. I do believe garlic alone could account for it, though, because at some stages of my chicken-keeping years I've had everything else gone from the diet that could have helped, yet there's still been no cocci issues, even having them on pellets for lack of any other feed source.

I believe for some cases part of it's due to natural resistance, for example raising chicks or baby animals with their mothers in a free range environment, exposed to natural probiotics/intestinal fauna etc via their mothers' bodily fluids and excretions (saliva, feces etc), out in the sunshine and dirt from day one. That's all generally been correlated with superior immune systems and lower coccidosis rates in every species I've kept.

Also by preference, I try to get robust lines that have been subject to more 'natural' selection, like 'ferals' or just what would conventionally be considered neglected animals. But that doesn't account for some of my animals which have been from more sanitary, caged and even indoor environments, very conventional, yet have also never suffered coccidiosis (while in my care anyway).

I think part of the efficacy is reliant on the destruction of cocci in the soil by the garlic traces in the feces too, I've got a study bookmarked somewhere that showed it worked that way in some species or another, think it was sheep or rabbits. Maybe goats. (I really need to get all this info in one useful place LOL, I'm planning to write it up with references and post it... Sooner or later). I can't really explain how else a heavily and long-term populated place can fail to produce coccidiosis cases during breaks in garlic dosage, surely it should have cropped up sometime or another.

In some places I had neighbors with chronically diseased livestock, which I often got livestock from, and still didn't have any problems with mine while theirs were dying next door (and on my land when they could get onto it or predators brought bits of them around).

I also lime the soil of their coops and runs and other frequented areas, just using calcium carbonate (not any caustic limes), to help keep the soil healthy, and use the composting deep litter method because I found very early on that cleaning the coop all the time upset the pathogen/'beneficials' balance of all the bacteria, microorganisms, fungi etc, and of course the opportunistic and harmful ones recovered first, and overpopulated as they do, bringing their tell-tale stink, and so the more I cleaned the more often my chooks looked 'off'... Still no coccidiosis symptoms, just a negative impact.

I stopped cleaning the coops out and that pattern stopped and their health has always been quite overall stable since then. I've never cleaned out a coop since. I believe it's crucially important to have healthy soil, so if it's pretty dead-looking soil when I first put chooks in a coop, I might 'inoculate' it with some healthy soil from a bush or forest area to get it composting quickly and efficiently.

Liming and composting deep litter also make it hard for cocci to reach dangerous buildup levels in soil.

I make sure newly hatched chicks have raw garlic in their first week, generally in their first feed but at the very least by the end of their first week, and from there I generally give it to them once a week for their first three months or so, there's no hard and fast rules to follow. It has long-lasting effects, missing a week or two or three doesn't matter (or at least it hasn't so far, but I do try to avoid it just in case).

If raw or granulated dried garlic is abundantly available and affordable I'll give it to them every day more or less, they love it and visually I really see the beneficial impact. I'm very anti-pellets because they without fail appear to have quite a depressive effect on their health and much of the added nutrients in them are crap quality or it's an incomplete spectrum or too many synthetic or overprocessed ingredients. The results of feeding such processed food speak for themselves. :/

I soak their grains for them, that's also very beneficial in many ways (including financially), and as with garlic I see visual boosts to their health from that; I don't often deliberately ferment the grains though, but sometimes it happens and they like that too. Easily digestible raw foods, natural fiber, etc doesn't support the gut conditions that favor coccidiosis.

Cooked food is only ever given in small amounts, the basis of the diet should be raw for best gut and overall health in my experience. A healthy gut doesn't become overrun with really rather mild pathogens like cocci overnight, or even in a week flat. A gut that only ever takes in cooked food is a prime breeding ground for that sort of trouble. I'm looking into growing them their own bugs, lol, they're phasing out animal protein for chooks here and they simply do not do as well on vegan diets. My diet for them fluctuates with availability and it's far from perfect unfortunately. If I could I'd have kelp back in their diet, that also did them worlds of good, but it's been a long time since I could access a reliable and good quality source.

Since it's so helpful for so many things I try to feed garlic to them at least once a week, preferably more often (as often as they want if I can) but supply has been very unstable lately, I need to grow my own. Also hearing that it's quite easy. (I'm on clay and rock soil right now so I doubt it, lol. But if I get the property I'm after that will all change).

Hope this helps. If your current husbandry method isn't providing the results you hope for it's definitely worth re-evaluating the component parts and reviewing everything. I did a lot of that early on because following the conventional chicken keeping model was not providing the results I found acceptable.

Best wishes.