Need help with my sick chick please!

[RooRidgeFarm]

And an FYI on Marek's vaccinations...
Please understand that if you are getting chicks and request (or self administer) the Marek's vaccinations...this vaccination is a LIVING vaccination. The hatchery discussed this with me. It is like giving them the LIVE virus at a lesser level, so they will carry this through their life. The caution they give is this: If you get chicks vaccinated or do it yourself, then EVERY other chicken on your property should be vaccinated also. From what they told me, because it is a living form of the disease, the chickens with the vaccination can pass the disease to the non-vaccinated birds because of their 'live' vaccinations. So either ALL or NONE of the birds should have the vaccination.

Just offering a word of advice.

 

[PoultryPedia]

Can the vaccination be given to birds when they are older? Or does each chicken need to have been vaccinated when it was a chick?

 

[RooRidgeFarm]

The recommended Merek's vaccination treatment is at day 1 of a chicks life and then re-administered day 10. I personally do not vaccinate because if I wanted to add any new older chickens to my flock (not hatchery chicks), and say I had vaccinated all my existing flock already for Merek's, the new chickens may not have been vaccinated and then it would be a death sentence for the new birds since the Merek's vaccine is basically the live form of the disease.

 

[Duck Drover]

I just lost a 5 week old chick to Marek's. Confirmed through necropsy. That disease is becoming more and more deadly by the day, I swear. It's just awful.

I thought I had read that you had a death confirmed as Marek's through necropsy so I had to look up the post again. Are you using the same brooder for all your chicks? Did you build the brooder yourself of get it from someone else? I know you are vaccinating chicks now but that just makes them carriers. What steps have you taken to protect the rest of your flock and prevent contamination to other flocks when you sell the chicks you hatch?

 

[CarlieO]

The message I got from you about the chicks a month after you bought from me was that they were beautiful and growing beautifully so these do not sound like they are the chicks you got from me, especially since none of the rest of your description is accurate. It is now very obvious you have me confused with someone else and I appreciate the clarification. In public you state you had a case of Marek's and in private you stated it was not Marek's after all when I asked you about it. I wanted to keep the conversation public because I could not keep up with the changes in your story. If I had any Marek's here it would have certainly shown up since I don't vaccinate for it and I have not had any signs of Marek's. You asked me shortly after your loss if I vaccinate and I explained that I don't and why. Since the chicks you got from me were exposed to Marek's on your property you may not have wanted to disclose that but if it had come from here I am certain you would have wanted me to know, especially considering how devastating a disease it is. From what you have shared it is obvious it did not come from me and you should be taking steps to make sure you don't spread it, which is what I would be doing if I had any sick birds to test for it. I would not even want to hatch chicks into an environment where there was the potential to contract Marek's so to me vaccination is a cover-up and not a solution to the actual problem. I sell alot of chicks to alot of people and yours are the only ones that ended up sick. That should tell you something.

Of course I'm going to tell you they're doing wonderfully. I didn't want to get involved with someone like you on a great site like this. There are better, more professional places to do so. It's easier to tell you they're fine than get into detail about how they're sick and to publically shame you about how horrid and filthy your home and your property is. Shame on you. My sick birds were 100% the very same birds I purchased from you. I had a closed flock prior to purchasing yours. I'm sure you know what that means. And it makes perfect sense why I e-mailed you a month after getting them. That's the approximate incubation period for Mareks after exposure. And, I haven't had a single bird fall illness to it since then. My story never changed. You choose to see the bits and pieces you want to see and you perseverate on them. Vaccination is no cover up; that's a very unintelligent and uneducated thing for you to say. It's a choice that everyone can choose to make or not make.

So, let's see here, I buy chicks from you. One month later they're diagnosed with Marek's. Incubation of Marek's is approximately 4 weeks after exposure (or longer). Again, they showed symptoms at 4 weeks. The facts prove they were exposed at your house given they showed symptoms at 4 weeks while quarantined in my basement with no other contact with any other birds, wild or domesticated, and no possible contact through fomites such as boots or clothing or anything else on my person that can transmit that disease. Dispute it all you want. The facts are there. I don't blame you for denying all of this. You are trying to protect yourself. If I had purchased these chicks from someone else I would be addressing it with them, not you. YOU were the seller, I was the buyer.

As if the pictures of the very sick rooster on the Washington thread by another user weren't enough proof, her e-mail transaction between you and her is proof enough. My e-mail transactions with the original Craigslist ad between you and me, where you identify yourself as Duck Drover in one of the messages, are also 100% solid proof that I'm MORE than happy to publically post if you drive me that far.

 

[Judy]

Closed for review.