Vaccinating for Marek's?

[kiraboo]

I have a flock of 15 adult hens (1.5yrs old) that were vaccinated at the hatchery as chicks. I have 5 new chicks from a classroom incubator hatching project that are now 2 weeks old that will eventually join them. Should I vaccinate them for Marek's because my original flock is? It's not too late, is it? Cost is not a huge problem... just want a piece of mind that my flock won't come down with this awful disease. Thanks for any guidance.

 

[Folly's place]

Chicks are vaccinated as day-olds, and then totally isolated from possible exposure to the virus for two to three weeks. If you are sure that there's no Marek's where the chicks are staying, you could still vaccinate them. I wouldn't do it at this point, though.
I have both vaccinated (from hatcheries) and unvaccinated (hatched here) chickens, and SO FAR no evidence of Marek's disease in my flock. I happily have no near neighbors with random source birds, and I'm paranoid about security.
I look on my unvaccinated birds as 'canaries in the coal mine'; if any develop Marek's disease, I'll know it's arrived here at last!
Mary

 

[Pyxis]

That's totally up to you - your original vaccinated flock cannot give the new chicks Marek's due to being vaccinated, because the vaccine isn't made with real Marek's disease, so if that was a concern for you, then you don't have to worry about that.

However, because it's not made with real Marek's, chickens that are vaccinated can still get, carry, and spread Marek's. The vaccine just hopefully keeps them from getting symptoms of the disease. So you can vaccinate, but your chickens could still get the disease, they just hopefully would not get any symptoms if they did. If you're more comfortable vaccinating, then that's your choice and you can do so.

However, to be effective, the vaccine should have been given at a day old. So you may be too late to vaccinate and it have any effect.