Moving Forward- Breeding for Resistance to Marek's Disease

[sassybirds]

First and foremost- I started this thread for people to share their experience with dealing with Marek's Disease- particularily those who are breeding for resistance. I encourage everyone to share their knowledge, experience, and perhaps support others who are also struggling with how to move forward.

Whew. Okay. I will spare y'all a blow by blow account, but after being a HUGE biosecurity advocate, I recently had a bird diagnosed with Marek's. I had went all out...disinfecting after going to the feed store, never going to other peoples farms who had chickens, only buying hatching eggs to reduce any possible diseases, etc. etc. etc. Yet MD STILL made its way into my flock. It's been about a month...I have had to cull about 10 birds so far. Most of them pullets. Go figure I can only chalk it up to bad luck...after all, I do live in GA, and there are about 10 chicken houses within a two mile radius of my house...literally disease INCUBATORS. It could have came from ANYWHERE. I have gone through feeling shocked, angry, depressed, and now I'm just resolved to move on. I REFUSE to think that a MD diagnosis is a death knell for my entire flock, or to my chicken keeping.

Me being the biology major that I am, I immediately set out to find as much information as I could...only to be bitterly disappointed. There seems to be three different camps on how to deal with MD- depopulate (old timers said to burn the chicken house to the ground with the chickens in it. Not happening.) and wait AT LEAST one year (studies have found the virus to survive for 65 weeks), keep a closed flock & vaccinate any incoming birds, and lastly, breed for resistance. This last group seems to be woefully small....

The depopulation route is not an option for me. Not that I have a problem culling birds, but because the thought of my birds catching MD again, after all the work and wait, is just unimaginable. Vaccination seems like a good route initially, until I found out that the vaccine does NOT prevent infection, only lessens the symptoms if infected, and in turn potentially perpetuating the problem by extending the life of a bird that is infected, and therefore shedding the virus....the be blown by the wind or carried by a wild bird or inadvertently by me. These virus containing particles can be microscopic, y'all. I would NEVER intentially infect anyone else's flock, but what am I supposed to do? Wear a hazmat suit? I would never judge or put down anyone who has chosen a different route, but the only thing that has made sense to me is to breed for resistance. I know it can be done. I know it will be heartbreaking to cull all affected birds...but I feel that it is the best way to deal with this insidious disease. So I would love for y'all to share your experiences on breeding for resistance! Thanks for reading my rant!

Special thanks to seminolewind who heard me out

 

[chooks4life]

First and foremost- I started this thread for people to share their experience with dealing with Marek's Disease- particularily those who are breeding for resistance. I encourage everyone to share their knowledge, experience, and perhaps support others who are also struggling with how to move forward.

Whew. Okay. I will spare y'all a blow by blow account, but after being a HUGE biosecurity advocate, I recently had a bird diagnosed with Marek's. I had went all out...disinfecting after going to the feed store, never going to other peoples farms who had chickens, only buying hatching eggs to reduce any possible diseases, etc. etc. etc. Yet MD STILL made its way into my flock. It's been about a month...I have had to cull about 10 birds so far. Most of them pullets. Go figure I can only chalk it up to bad luck...after all, I do live in GA, and there are about 10 chicken houses within a two mile radius of my house...literally disease INCUBATORS. It could have came from ANYWHERE. I have gone through feeling shocked, angry, depressed, and now I'm just resolved to move on. I REFUSE to think that a MD diagnosis is a death knell for my entire flock, or to my chicken keeping.

Me being the biology major that I am, I immediately set out to find as much information as I could...only to be bitterly disappointed. There seems to be three different camps on how to deal with MD- depopulate (old timers said to burn the chicken house to the ground with the chickens in it. Not happening.) and wait AT LEAST one year (studies have found the virus to survive for 65 weeks), keep a closed flock & vaccinate any incoming birds, and lastly, breed for resistance. This last group seems to be woefully small....

The depopulation route is not an option for me. Not that I have a problem culling birds, but because the thought of my birds catching MD again, after all the work and wait, is just unimaginable. Vaccination seems like a good route initially, until I found out that the vaccine does NOT prevent infection, only lessens the symptoms if infected, and in turn potentially perpetuating the problem by extending the life of a bird that is infected, and therefore shedding the virus....the be blown by the wind or carried by a wild bird or inadvertently by me. These virus containing particles can be microscopic, y'all. I would NEVER intentially infect anyone else's flock, but what am I supposed to do? Wear a hazmat suit? I would never judge or put down anyone who has chosen a different route, but the only thing that has made sense to me is to breed for resistance. I know it can be done. I know it will be heartbreaking to cull all affected birds...but I feel that it is the best way to deal with this insidious disease. So I would love for y'all to share your experiences on breeding for resistance! Thanks for reading my rant!

Special thanks to seminolewind who heard me out

There's clinical evidence St John's Wort treats neurological/nervous system disorders in humans, and some people have used it with success on birds with MD, so if you're feeling up to it you could test that... But of course chances are that the birds showing symptoms strongly are just too weak in the first place. Still, if I come across MD again that's what I'll try. Better to experiment on sick birds than cull, which sounds cruel but unfortunately it is expedient that one should suffer longer to prevent the sufferings of millions. But only if that animal is willing to fight for its life, you can't force them if they're not, they'll die anyway.

If you use a natural-as-possible diet and rearing system, I reckon you will succeed. That's the controversial part obviously, unfortunately... Still, if the conventional means have failed and keep failing, it's only logical to try something different. I have a theory that diseases in America are perhaps stronger than Aussie ones because there's a larger pool so to speak, with a strong trend towards using antibiotics as a husbandry staple, not a rare occurrence. I know Britain and the UK have some seriously aggressive diseases compared to their Aussie counterparts, and massive overuse of antibiotics to the point where they are being forced to return to natural animal husbandry just because there is no longer any viable alternative.

Total nutrition is one of the main 'tools' in your kit for disease prevention so scrimping won't help. Total health is the main defense against disease since we need their immune system to take control. No malnutrition-causing, scrimping commercial layer pellet/mash diets allowed! lol... Seriously though for full health you need at least the last three generations in full health, and then you're onto a level playing field so to speak. If you were using commercial layer feed I would suggest you get a higher quality feed.

My experiences with MD have been very few, and birds genetically prone to leukosis were the ones most likely to get it. It didn't rampage through my flock at all, out of many hundreds of birds only a couple died, and in isolated cases separated by months. The rest simply never looked sick. I brought in birds from dozens of sources, some of which were sick when I got them, from all manner of different genetic backgrounds, locations, and husbandry methods. Some were vaccinated for MD, and they died of something almost identical to it, but apparently genetic. The rest were not vaccinated and only a few died out of them compared to all of the others which were vaccinated --- but that was a very small sample. Obviously not all vaccinated birds die from it; I'm just sharing my specific experience.

The flock I got MD from had an almost total failure rate, meaning they dropped like flies. They were mostly vaccinated, raised free range, but not with natural medications. I was concerned about bringing that disease home but recognized the futility of trying to perpetually avoid it. People were visiting all the time, bringing contagious materials and animals around. The flock I saw decimated by MD belonged to a purebred breeder, and most purebred breeders I've met so far have overly stringent biosecurity and correspondingly genetically and immunologically weak birds.

In my opinion it's quite likely that only the birds bred for resistance to disease, not protected from it, will be left standing long into the future. It's not a matter of IF disease gets in, it's WHEN, and I think some biosecurity measures are ticking time bombs. I am sorry to hear of your experiences but glad to hear you will help attack the disease in about the only way we can. Maybe sometime in future a miraculous cure will be discovered, but maybe not, and in the meantime resistance is the best bet.

Best wishes with the battle.

 

[microchick]

Chickens can recover from the symptoms of Marek’s on their own, so it isn’t unheard of to have a chicken get their ability to walk back. It doesn’t mean they don’t have the disease, they’re still carriers of it.

Plus the survivors will usually live shorter lives and succumb to the secondary diseases of Marek's namely tumors.

I've had that happen to a beautiful rooster who was sweet and gentle with both the hens and humans. He was gone in the blink of an eye to tumors in his throat. He was just under two years old and never showed a reaction to the primary MD infection that most get when they are 9 weeks old. I had hopes he was going to be the 'one' who survived the disease as he was almost 2 but by the time I found his tumors (hidden in his thick hackle feathers and dangling big wattles) it was too late and I had to put him down.

Marek's will also affect the laying life of any surviving hen. Most have shorter laying lives and are more prone to reproductive problems/prolapses/cancers.

I've been working since December on an article for BYC chronicling my experiences with the disease in my flock. It's not a scientific or informative article. I could never compete with Nambroth's excellent article. It's just my attempt to show people that there is life as a chicken keeper after Marek's Disease hits your flock. I hope to have it done by spring. I'm doing rewrites now and working on illustrations then it is good to go.

 

[chooks4life]

Good to hear about your home-breds. Hope they remain strong against it.

Quote: lol yes, they are often effectively programmed, it's amazing how little some professionals know. :/

I have some worrying personal experiences, and know of quite a few people whom I don't doubt the veracity of with equivalent experiences, detailing shocking ignorance demonstrated by professionals. I believe most of them would benefit from hands-on experience as part of their training, which I know is probably asking too much, it's time consuming enough to do one or the other, never mind both studying and animal keeping. Good enough has to be good enough.

There are some vets even on this forum who don't know the basics, but at least as poultry keepers they are getting on track to learn as much as possible. All book learning and no hands-on learning leaves staggering great gaps in comprehension. Unfortunately excessive book learning minus experience with the practical side of things can apparently blind some people to reality perhaps for life. And unfortunately many textbooks being used to train our trusted professionals are riddled with some serious errors.

I'm not trying to make myself out to be some kind of expert here, I make no such claim; my opinion is based on the many textbooks I've studied for most of my life and having found not one single textbook to be totally correct. I keep multiple copies of books from different authors on every subject I'm interested in because every single one disagrees with others who are equally accredited, and every single one has at least one 'fact' I have found to be wrong, irrespective of how many of their other facts are correct. I'm not sure what's more frightening, professionals with incorrect knowledge or those who blindly trust in all they say.

Best wishes.

 

[ackie]

I don't vaccinate myself. I usually only hatch out a dozen or so chicks a year as I have to consider what space I have left.

For me, vaccinating worked. I don't vaccinate my own chicks that I or a broody hatch out but every chick I buy outside our farm is vaccinated.

yeah my logic was that I hatch way too many to have any vaccinated since that would give those birds the opportunity to become super spreaders and I want my original birds to have a fighting chance.

 

[microchick]

That is good to know about the head pecking. I've watched my Amish barnyard crosses and even my BBR-OEGB hens and those little farts stand up on their tip toes to peck one another on the head. Yesterday I saw one of the Littles peck a hen three times her size on the head telling her to get out of her space and sure enough, the big hen moved, FAST!

I wish I could say that for me buying my birds from a private breeder was a good choice but it was the beginning of a nightmare for me that was three years of sheer misery. In this world, you pay your money and you take your chances. I feel like I paid dearly for those 18 chicks, if not in money then in emotion and stress.

I feel as you do about vaccinating. It isn't for everyone and it depends on your particular situation but for me, to protect my birds so I can enjoy them and not watch them slowly die or me have to put them down to keep them from suffering a slow lingering death. If I had my druthers, I would rather not vaccinate but if I want to have and enjoy a back yard/farm flock of birds, I have no choice.

Marek's disease is a game changer. When I started my flock, my intentions were to get a flock established and then start raising 'lawn candy' types of rare birds to sell. There are plenty of production type birds in the area but few of the beautiful, rare and unique to be found. I wanted to do that.

When I learned I have Marek's disease on our property. That all changed. Now I'm just happy if I can get a bird to live longer than 2 years and get enough eggs to give to neighbors and delivery people as tips.

 

[sassybirds]

Good luck to you! I am posting so that I can watch this thread and hopefully glean knowledge. I have a very small flock of very much pet birds, so have not gone down this route, because even one loss is heartbreaking. For those that have less personal attachment to their flock, are willing to cull and keep very strict and good records, and are in it for the long haul.... it is likely a worthwhile venture.

I can totally understand, Nambroth. Sorry to hear about your birds! Hopefully we can rustle up some good info...

Good to hear.

I agree about Purina and the purebred birds. The weakest animals I've ever dealt with are purebreds. The comment about scrimping on nutrition is due to the commercial layer feeds often being so sub-par in nutrition that they're better classed as survival rations than complete feeds as they're not developed to keep animals alive for more than a few years. They don't supply many minerals, trace element etc which aren't necessary for survival in the short term but which are vital for longevity and total health. The short term deficiency won't show but down the track there's no repairing the harm done, or at least, it's incredibly difficult. The mineral/nutrient mix of many commercial feeds contains between 10 and 20-odd nutrients whereas around 80 is correct for a truly complete feed.

I also saw more pullets than cockerels die from it. That aspect would need investigating I'd guess. There is a reason why, for sure. Haven't heard of one suggested though.

Regarding culling birds showing infection, isn't that a bit of a moot point since by the time one shows infection chances are the whole flock's been exposed? In my experience almost none of mine showed any symptoms but I don't doubt that they've been exposed and are quite likely carriers. I guess it saves you time dealing with the weakest who are most prone, at least. But it also deprives you of a test subject for potential treatments, though it's not imperative that you go along that route anyway. Many paths lead to success.

It's times like these I wish I had a home laboratory, I'd be testing for this and that and ten thousand other things... lol. What's the chances of you finding an open-minded and progressive vet who is willing to help you study this and try to combat it?

I hope this thread yields some hope for Mareks' sufferers in future. I believe you're on the right track, though it won't be easy. Then again the right track rarely is.

Very best wishes with your endeavor.

I have also read much of the same on commercial feeds...it's just the bare minimum. I free range my birds, and use a vitamin supplement, but I know the feed is subpar. Stale.

Where I had read the bit about pullets being more affected said nothing about WHY. Would be good to know...

I had to cull ANOTHER POL pullet today. Began showing leg weakness/paralysis. So frustrating. It was a hatchery bird though (purchased solely for egg production), so I'm not surprised it was susceptible. I am culling all birds showing symptoms in the hope that I will be left with the strongest, most resistant individuals. The way I have understood it, albeit poorly, that the bird isn't perfectly immune, only resistant. So, by my reasoning, by culling the infected/susceptible birds that are shedding the virus, that it will possibly reduce the viral load, and I won't have to doctor ill and suffering birds. The idea of trying St. John's on them is a good one though. I may try that with my next victim.

Here in GA there is the GA Poultry Lab that does necropsies and disease testing for free, so it's possible that they may be able to test for the "B factors" that contribute to resistance. The vet part though...I don't know. I have called and talked to several vets. And they all told me the same thing- vaccinate. Vaccinate. Vaccinate. It's almost like they were programmed to say that. One vet literally didn't understand what I was talking about when I mentioned breeding for resistance...hope spring eternal, and I'm sure I can hunt down a progressive vet if I just keep at it...

 

[seminolewind]

Howdy! I have read nothing new on Marek's the past few years. I do know that I would still try everything I could hoping it's something else. I have also found that after a year or so , exposed but not symptomatic (Leg paralysis) chickens of mine have suppressed immune systems and very easy to be sick from common bacteria, the big one being cocci or enteritis or e. coli. Right or wrong, but last ditch effort I treat with any antibiotic I have on hand and an anticoccidial. If feel I have nothing to lose when the alternative is death.

My intro to Marek's was hatching 10 perfectly beautiful hatched chicks that at 6-8 weeks all got paralysis and had to be euthanized one by one. Boy did I cry buckets. That was the way way bad end. The better end was a 6 week Polish that got paralysis and I put her in the garage because I just could not cull her. She had quite an appetite. Eventually I moved her to my bedroom. She would take naps with me. Still quite an appetite. She slowly appeared to get better. Eventually my hubs and I would practice walking from him to me like you do with a toddler. Finally she went back with the flock. She died 8 yrs old , euthanized due to leg to paralysis and not able to feed. At 8 years old I don't know why she had paralysis. But she gave me Joy for 8 years. I still miss her badly.

I've had just about every scenario in between. I find the best way to protect my flock is vaccination and also sending chickens with unknown death to a lab for a necropsy. So if you think it's Marek's , send it to a state animal disease lab for a necropsy (not the vet) and find out for sure. If you buy chicks from anywhere other than the hatchery, or hatched at home, you do risk getting Marek's (keeping a closed flock). My flock was introduced by a young hen I bought from a breeder! The only bird I ever ever bought outside my "closed" flock.

This is my midnight ramble, LOL. If it helps one person, my ramble was worth rambling.

 

[microchick]

First off you have to remember that Marek's disease is basically a herpes infection found in chickens as it (herpes) is found in humans. Only in chickens, the herpes manifests itself either by neurological/tumors or ocular symptoms.

There is no cure for herpes. In humans, it stays in the hosts body for the duration of their lives. Have you ever had a cold sore? Chicken pox? Shingles as a result of chicken pox? They are all herpes infections caused by a herpes virus that is different from that which infests chickens.

Colloidal silver is a marvelous thing and I've read of people using it to treat MD. I am a retired nurse and am familiar with it being used in wound treatment. I'm not poo pooing it as being an antiviral but I have my doubts that it has cured your flock of Marek's disease. If it had any value at all as a serious anti herpes treatment it would have been blasting across the medical airways as well as veterinary airways as a knock out drug for treatment of herpes in human beings as well as poultry and sorry, I've not heard any such thing anywhere and both my husband and I are retired medical professionals who keep our fingers on the pulse of medical breakthroughs.

I'm not doubting that your chickens got better but are you sure you are dealing with Mareks? Have you had a necropsy done to verify? There are other medical conditions that cause temporary paralysis in chickens.

Personally I have been dealing with Marek's disease/confirmed in my flock for almost 5 years now. Marek's is everywhere and I've dealt with every form of the disease. If Colloidal Silver has worked for you and your flock, I applaud your success and your efforts.

@6_year_Eer It's miserable isn't it? You sound as though you have been through the same ordeal I have been through and it happened to you the same way it happened to me.

Is my flock stable? I hold my breath and knock on wood as I have been dealing with this for 5 years but at the moment, yes, my flock is stable. I reached this point by getting rid of my original flock that succumbed and or were carriers and introduced chicks hatched from eggs I brought in from an Amish neighbor's healthy flock that seem to have a resistance to the local strain of MD. I also brought in Egyptian Fayoumis that are genetically resistant to Marek's disease.

I'm currently working on my second and third generations from the Amish barnyard birds and second generation cross breeds from my Fayoumis and local birds.

I'm in Missouri which requires eggs shipped in or out to be done by an NPIP registered breeder so it would be hard. In state I might be tempted but even then I would hesitate. The strain of Marek's I dealt with was as brutal as yours was but there is no saying that it was the same strain.

Have you ever considered EFs as naturally resistant birds as new members for your flock? Mine were vaccinated on top of being naturally resistant and outside of losing one to parasites, they are doing very well.

I'll sure be watching to see how your experiment goes. Good luck!

 

[microchick]

Thank you @feather13. I am so sorry to hear that you are going through this heartache also. Yes, Marek's disease is a heartbreaker. Mine came from a breeder breeding for resistance. I never thought that there were different strains of Marek's disease or the possibility that while resistant to the strain in place A doesn't mean that birds are resistant to the strain in place B.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

If it is any consolation, I have brought vaccinated chicks into my flock, bantams and my Egyptian Fayoumis and they are all doing well knock on wood. The oldest are three years old now and so far so good so there is a silver lining around that cloud. It might be a bit dingy and tarnished but by golly, it's there.

Hang in there. It doesn't go away but it does get better.

And thank you so much for your words of encouragement. Makes me think it is time to get out the sketch pad and work on some more illos. I'm trying to shine a different light on the disease, one of hope instead of one of despair.

Mainly I want people who are fighting this disease in their flocks to know that they aren't alone in their battle.