Not an Emergency...Marek's in the Flock

[rebrascora]

Hi again

So pleased I was able to offer you a bit of hope and direction.

When my outbreak started, like most people, I hadn't heard of Marek's and didn't know anything about it.

I let the chickens out one morning a year gone Sept and one of my young pullets was hobbling badly.... basically walking on her hock. I naively assumed it was an injury but a day or two later a second one was badly lame. Both had been fine the previous day. Then the third one went down almost in front of me a couple of days after and was lying in classic Marek's splits position, having been normal a couple of hours earlier. By then I had done my research and was feeling pretty alarmed. Most of the advice I read initially was to cull the whole flock... I had about 30 chickens!!
Then I started to read threads on this forum where people were battling the disease and trying different remedies and it gave me hope, so it's wonderful for me to be able to pass that on to you, especially as I can now speak from experience and say that things don't always turn out to be nearly as bad as a lot of what you read.

The first pullet I think was the one that learned to hop after a few weeks of tripping and flapping and floundering. The second one deteriorated over the next few days and was unable to stand or walk at all. Then her neck twisted as well and she couldn't manage to eat and drink or even stay lying on her side and was rolling over onto her back after I had left her propped up. I made the difficult decision to cull her (at the age of 50 she was the first creature I had deliberately killed and I cried buckets!) I did however, do a DIY post mortem exam and found two huge tumours... one on her leg and the other on her abdomen... and that was enough to convince me that a) I had done the right thing in euthanizing her and b) it was definitely Marek's
The third one, made two miraculous recoveries from 2 attacks several months apart. The fourth one was a cockerel who floundered for a couple of days and then got progressively better until a fortnight or so later, was fully fit, but went on to have another attack a year later and declined that time and I had to cull. Another cockerel had a few days of lameness and then got over it and is still fine a year and a bit later.

Autumn/winter time seems to be the prime time for an outbreak, whether that is an environmental factor or just that the previous spring/summer's chicks are reaching that vulnerable age, I'm not sure. It also coincides with the young cockerels starting to be at the mercy of raging hormones and the pullets and hens being harassed by them as a result. Stress is definitely a trigger. If you have any young cockerels, removing them to a bachelor pad will help alleviate that stressor for both sexes.... but for me the girls wellbeing is my main priority, as surplus cockerels are just destined to become dinner.

The aggressiveness of the virus is more about how many birds it affects and the fatality rate rather than how it first exhibits. I certainly can't claim that I coddle my birds. I'm not scrupulous about cleanliness and I'm not a fan of using antibiotics unless absolutely essential so I let ailments like IB run their course without treatment, It is therefore not down to any good husbandry on my part that my chickens/flock are mostly surviving with this disease when others are losing whole hatches. The only conclusion I can draw is that there is a variance in virulence of the strain and I count myself fortunate that mine is mild.
I do however think that broody reared chicks are more robust and free ranging allows them a more natural and varied diet and lifestyle, which also has to reflect on their immune system and overall ability to fight and recover from illness.

The area under your table sounds like a good place for an infirmary although I have to say that having it up off the ground makes cleaning it and tending them a little easier on the back! You might also want to do some research on chicken slings so that you can support any future sufferers in an upright position if they are unable to stand.

Regards

Barbara .

 

[ochochicas]

KayTee - Sorry to hear about your birds. I have a very aggressive form of Marek's in my flock. My roosters typically go down hill very quickly. The last one was fine one day, laying around the next, and dead the following morning (within 36 hours of showing signs of being ill). My pullets will linger for months sometimes. The unvaccinated ones have never recovered and survived. They all end up with internal tumors, respiratory disease, blindness, wasting, or inability to walk. I started to cull them as soon as they got sick since I couldn't bare to watch them go down hill.

I have one vaccinated pullet that recovered from marek's symptoms and is now perfectly normal. I would say she is a miracle pullet and not the norm.

 

[triton77]

Does anyone here raise meat birds? I'm trying to decide if I should get the meat birds vaccinated for mareks. I am getting rangers so we will keep them to about 12wks. I'm thinking I should but it would cut the cost down some if I didn't. My birds have marek's only one of my original flock is surviving(she's turning 3) all of my other birds have been vaccinated.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

 

[Haunted55]

I've never done the Rangers myself. I have and do the meaties and never bother to vaccinate them. I don't know that I'd bother with the vaccination myself. The worst that could happen is you have some who do become symptomatic. Just mean an early culling. Yes, you can eat the birds even if they do become infected. We cannot get chicken herpes. Something else you might want to consider, turkeys to run with the Rangers. It helps, alot.

 

[debigag]

Drinks excessively, won't eat, shaking her head and slinging fluid whenever she shakes her head, water pooh that just squirts out, almost all water, lots of it. sickly eyes, pale face. She is the only one that has been this bad so far. The other 2 that died ate and drank all the way up until they died (pretty quickly) with no paralysis. I don't know, I've never been faced with this stuff before or anything like it. I first thought they had caught a cold due to the rain and cold. But I noticed that they smelled bad the day they brought them, but I thought that it was because he had been keeping them in a horse pen with a bunch of others.

GRAPHIC PHOTOS!!

I just lost a hen (put her down) that had similar symptoms. Shaking her head, watery poo, throwing up a very nasty watery yellow fluid that smelled VERY bad, walked like a penguin, poor balance, eyes and skin were fine though. Had excessive thirst, did eat but not a lot, lost a ton of weight but her belly was very bloated. After 2-3 weeks I had her put down and I opened her up. I do not know chicken internals....here are pictures SORRY GRAPHIC. No idea why she died. Had one die a few weeks before, lethargic, poop bowel movements, died on her own. I think she had been sick for a few months because she struggled to move her bowels (no egg issues and had stopped laying 2 years prior) they are almost 5 yr. old. I lost a third hen this morning. Fine up until last eve when she seemed a bit lethargic. This morning she was sitting on the floor in the coop (which is very clean as these are pets). Her nightly poo was just watery no smell. I picked her up and set her outside...she took 2-3 steps fell over started gasping for air, trashed around, I immediately grabbed her up and started mouth to beak...worked on her 4-5 minutes but she was gone. Total elapsed time maybe 90 seconds! Any ideas anyone???

 

[rebrascora]

Hi

Sorry to hear about your hens that died. It doesn't sound like Marek's to me as it usually affects youngsters under the age of 12 months.

One sounds like she may have had ascites (water belly) or perhaps egg bound. Bloated and walking like a penguin are indications of those and if so, she probably got to the stage that her lungs were collapsing from the pressure of it or heart failure is also common. Watery poop is usually an indication that she is not eating enough and the foul smelling yellow reflux will probably be due to bile coming up because it can't go down through her system. The excessive thirst may be because she is dehydrating as a result of the water belly, odd as that seems.

Well done for opening her up. I know it's not a nice thing to do especially when they are pets The photos don't show anything obviously untoward apart from the inside of the gizzard being rather yellow.... again due to bile. Liver looks healthy enough from what I can see. That orangey yellow fat is normal for an old hen. Was there a lot of fluid in her abdominal cavity where she appeared bloated? It would have helped if you had lifted out her intestines and arranged them in a circular shape just so that we could see if there was any obvious blockage. Also, did you find any eggs (partially formed or just little yolks and any masses that looked like cooked sausage meat (lash eggs)?

Sorry, I can't really offer any more comment on it at the moment. Are there other posts where you have documented their symptoms as they have happened, just in case there is something there that you have forgotten to outline here?

Hoping this is the end of your chicken health problems. I know with mine that I have long periods where they are all fine and then I have a bad spell when they all seem to want to be ill, which can be pretty demoralising. Hang in there. Things will get better.

 

[debigag]

Hi

Sorry to hear about your hens that died. It doesn't sound like Marek's to me as it usually affects youngsters under the age of 12 months.

One sounds like she may have had ascites (water belly) or perhaps egg bound. Bloated and walking like a penguin are indications of those and if so, she probably got to the stage that her lungs were collapsing from the pressure of it or heart failure is also common. Watery poop is usually an indication that she is not eating enough and the foul smelling yellow reflux will probably be due to bile coming up because it can't go down through her system. The excessive thirst may be because she is dehydrating as a result of the water belly, odd as that seems.

Well done for opening her up. I know it's not a nice thing to do especially when they are pets The photos don't show anything obviously untoward apart from the inside of the gizzard being rather yellow.... again due to bile. Liver looks healthy enough from what I can see. That orangey yellow fat is normal for an old hen. Was there a lot of fluid in her abdominal cavity where she appeared bloated? It would have helped if you had lifted out her intestines and arranged them in a circular shape just so that we could see if there was any obvious blockage. Also, did you find any eggs (partially formed or just little yolks and any masses that looked like cooked sausage meat (lash eggs)?

Sorry, I can't really offer any more comment on it at the moment. Are there other posts where you have documented their symptoms as they have happened, just in case there is something there that you have forgotten to outline here?

Hoping this is the end of your chicken health problems. I know with mine that I have long periods where they are all fine and then I have a bad spell when they all seem to want to be ill, which can be pretty demoralising. Hang in there. Things will get better.

Thanks for the great insight....her liver and heart looked very healthy to me. There WAS about 10 oz. of yellow fluid in her belly. The membrane that surround her intestines is what you see in the first photo....on the left side of the picture you can see a white "bladder. That was full of fluid.......that yellow watery smelly stuff. Her intestines were very hard and compact. I could not pull them out of the cavity very easily and they were very hard to cut through. When I did, the tissue was very hard rubbery and the center of the intestine was tiny. I expected there to be an opening through the "tube" that was at least the thickness of a pencil but it was the thickness of the LEAD of a pencil. She had stopping laying 2 years ago and her oviducts et al looked very normal. They were white and no ovum were present at all...the tissue was soft and no lesion or marks......what one would expect from a hen who has not laid in years.

I had initially thought Lash Egg because she had every symptom, lack of feeding, excessive thirst, walking like a penguin, thick belly.....but I saw nothing in there other than the excessive fluid.
She was surviving with all these conditions and she did not seem to be in distress or pain. When I came to the pen she waddled over to me as always. She still wanted to be held, etc. But she was slowly starving I know....she had no body left when I opened her. You could have sliced cheese with the sharpness of that breastbone.

One question I had is with the location of her crop/gizzard. In the first photo to the right of the picture you can see a pink, longish "hanging testicle" looking organ. I opened that and it was what I thought was her crop/gizzard as it was full of grain and stones. But when she was alive it was located clear down in her belly right along side her leg!!!! When I would feel her belly I could feel this hard round lump that I thought, at the time, was a tumor down there. What would THAT be doing so far down inside her????

 

[rebrascora]

It's a common misunderstanding but crop and gizzard are two very different things.
The crop is basically like a hopper for food to be stored in until it goes down into the digestive tract and is located in the neck/chest area and you can feel it and palpitate it quite easilty and usually see when it is full as it bulges out of the side of the chest.

The gizzard is the tough rubbery part that you cut open between the first and second photos with the grains etc in it. It is located below the liver deep in the body cavity and is actually a discus shaped pouch made of thick muscle and lined with a thick membrane and has what I would describe as an opalescent appearance on the outside. Stones(grit) are kept in this and the muscle contacts to grind the food and stones(grit) together to break the food down.... this is kind of the equivalent of us chewing. The grit also gets worn down in the process until it is eventually too small to be retained and is passed out with the food into the intestines. If the outlet is too big, the grit cannot be retained to break the food down, so it needs to be small. The gizzard is probably the most solid feeling organ within the chicken and as you say, the inlet and outlet appear really tiny. I think when you are talking about cutting through the intestine, you are perhaps actually meaning the gizzard. The intestines are the pale floppy tubes that are interconnected by a translucent network of tissue and blood vessels.

I hope that makes it a little clearer for you.

From what you say about the fluid sac on the left in the first photo I'm pretty sure she had ascites, as that is not normal at all and 10 oz is a pretty hefty size bag of fluid to be carrying around inside you all the time when you are only a little hen.

 

[debigag]

It's a common misunderstanding but crop and gizzard are two very different things.
The crop is basically like a hopper for food to be stored in until it goes down into the digestive tract and is located in the neck/chest area and you can feel it and palpitate it quite easilty and usually see when it is full as it bulges out of the side of the chest.

The gizzard is the tough rubbery part that you cut open between the first and second photos with the grains etc in it. It is located below the liver deep in the body cavity and is actually a discus shaped pouch made of thick muscle and lined with a thick membrane and has what I would describe as an opalescent appearance on the outside. Stones(grit) are kept in this and the muscle contacts to grind the food and stones(grit) together to break the food down.... this is kind of the equivalent of us chewing. The grit also gets worn down in the process until it is eventually too small to be retained and is passed out with the food into the intestines. If the outlet is too big, the grit cannot be retained to break the food down, so it needs to be small. The gizzard is probably the most solid feeling organ within the chicken and as you say, the inlet and outlet appear really tiny. I think when you are talking about cutting through the intestine, you are perhaps actually meaning the gizzard. The intestines are the pale floppy tubes that are interconnected by a translucent network of tissue and blood vessels.

I hope that makes it a little clearer for you.

From what you say about the fluid sac on the left in the first photo I'm pretty sure she had ascites, as that is not normal at all and 10 oz is a pretty hefty size bag of fluid to be carrying around inside you all the time when you are only a little hen.

Thanks for the great info. I knew that the crop/gizzard were two different things but I guess I did not realize they were so far apart. I thought the gizzard was higher up in the cavity. That organ on the right is indeed her gizzard, very muscular and full of the little stone grinders. I cut through the center of her intestines (mid-way between the start and end). They were most definitely not soft and floppy. You can see them in photo #3 between my two fingers. They were pretty hard and thick walled. I did cut open her gizzard (photo #2). It was thick walled and obvious. There was nothing in her crop at all but there was food stuffs in her gizzard.

Again thanks for the info....that helps. I had a third chicken pass this morning. Showed no signs of distress until last evening when she was not interested in the greens I brought in at about 6pm. Then this morning when I opened the cop she had not roosted and was sitting on the cop floor. Her poo had been just water. I set her out on the ground she stumbled 203 steps and fell over then started thrashing and rolling....she could not breath and was suffocating. I grabbed her and did mouth to beak for 4-5 minutes but she was gone. From the minute I opened to door to when she was gone was literally 90 seconds!!!! NO idea what has happened to her. Totally different symptoms than the other two deaths this month. Three deaths in 6 weeks and all different and all unknown reasons why. UGH!

 

[rebrascora]

Yes, intestines should be thin walled and soft and floppy, so that was obviously another problem, or perhaps the water was all draining into that big blister and her intestines hardened as she became dehydrated and impacted . I can see them between your fingers in the photo but it was difficult to gauge texture from that. Poor soul, that can't have been comfortable.

If you get the chance to open the other one up, it would be interesting to see photos of her too and maybe help identify the problem with her. I usually check the intestines for worms as well. Gross as it sounds it's worth knowing as it may save another hens life. I don't worm routinely so it's helpful to monitor these things when a bird dies of sickness or is slaughtered for meat (I process my excess cockerels).

Do you have many chickens left and will you replace the ones that you have lost? It is heart breaking when you have a bad spell like that. I've had them.... mostly Marek's with mine which seems to be seasonal....and even now when I'm having a good run when I've had nearly 5 months without a sick bird...., I know it's only a matter of time, although I'm really lucky that my Marek's strain is a relatively mild one.