2 month old welsummer pullet sick, is it mareks?

[steph5253]

Mine would start out be not being able to balance on the roost bar, and start sleeping in the nestboxes instead. Then start sleeping on the ground because she was too unbalanced to hop up the 18" to reach the nestbox perch. Then start falling over face first while eating & drinking. Then hobbling about using her wings on the ground to steady her. Then being reduced to flopping about on the ground to get to the feeder & waterer. Then, being unable to even do that and if the other chickens didn't scalp her, she starved to death. This would take place over a period of several months.
After seeing this happen many times over the years I found it more humane to just cull the bird.
I live in a humid area, 90-95% with 100* temps, so mold, fungus, allergies and respiratory problems & infections are the norm, for both animals and humans.

So you don't know what it was? How often does this happen for you?
It does not really sound like my birds but still good to know...

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I suspected Merecks but could be many things. Sometimes it affects 2 birds from a hatch, sometimes 0. Since I hatch about 100 birds a year it adds up to a few birds.

 

[seminolewind]

Mine would start out be not being able to balance on the roost bar, and start sleeping in the nestboxes instead. Then start sleeping on the ground because she was too unbalanced to hop up the 18" to reach the nestbox perch. Then start falling over face first while eating & drinking. Then hobbling about using her wings on the ground to steady her. Then being reduced to flopping about on the ground to get to the feeder & waterer. Then, being unable to even do that and if the other chickens didn't scalp her, she starved to death. This would take place over a period of several months.
After seeing this happen many times over the years I found it more humane to just cull the bird.
I live in a humid area, 90-95% with 100* temps, so mold, fungus, allergies and respiratory problems & infections are the norm, for both animals and humans.

My last demise was a 6 year old Ameraucana. I sent her for necropsy. At the end she had wasted away until she couldn't get up, and until then, roosting every night and looking okay, she had just recovered from a bumble removed from her ear.

I sent her for necropsy. She was found to have a mass in her lung and a mass in her heart, and never had respiratory symptoms. Here result came back positive for Aspergillosis. Negative for Marek's. I don't know how she was Negative for Marek's because she was exposed 3 years prior, and quite a few chickens under a year old had died or been euthanized for Classic symptoms of Marek's, mostly some with paralysis, most with wasting, and unable to "aim" at food and pick it up. How can she test negative for Marek's and it was specified on her form sent with the necropsy?

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I think a chicken can be a Merecks carrier but not show any signs of it. How that affects a necropsy I can't tell you.
I failed to mention that mine also exhibited wheezing in addition to the other symptoms. I'm chalking it up to Aspergillosis because every time after it rains the molds start it seems to affect me and the chickens equally.
Funny thing, I never had a useless rooster get sick and die, it's always my pullets and hens.

 

[steph5253]

My last demise was a 6 year old Ameraucana.  I sent her for necropsy.  At the end she had wasted away until she couldn't get up, and until then, roosting every night and looking okay, she had just recovered from a bumble removed from her ear.

I sent her for necropsy.  She was found to have a mass in her lung and a mass in her heart, and never had respiratory symptoms.  Here result came back positive for Aspergillosis.  Negative for Marek's.  I don't know how she was Negative for Marek's because she was exposed 3 years prior, and quite a few chickens under a year old had died or been euthanized for Classic symptoms of Marek's, mostly some with paralysis, most with wasting, and unable to "aim" at food and pick it up.  How can she test negative for Marek's and it was specified on her form sent with the necropsy?

Sounds like this bird had aspergillus plus another random disorder with tumors that was probably genetic or by chance or due to multiple exposures to molds...
I am not sure about the mareks negative if she had been exposed…

 

[steph5253]

I think a chicken can be a Merecks carrier but not show any signs of it. How that affects a necropsy I can't tell you.
I failed to mention that mine also exhibited wheezing in addition to the other symptoms. I'm chalking it up to Aspergillosis because every time after it rains the molds start it seems to affect me and the chickens equally.
Funny thing, I never had a useless rooster get sick and die, it's always my pullets and hens.

Your chickens could have both been suffering from the same condition it sounds. The two chickens I've had fall ill, out of 10 by the way, neither showed any other illness symptoms that would point to anything respiratory.
It has really made me realize that things are not just black-and-white with chickens LOL
I do think that two out of 10 is pretty significant especially within a month of each other. Oddly though they have basic similar symptoms with liveliness that other symptoms are completely different. Both had very quick onset but one went straight to not eating as soon as she was wobbly and never fully was paralyzed the other is barely able to move but yet she still eating well and is not as lethargic as the first. Maybe something different I don't know I'm also thinking that if it is Merrick's I'm surprised they both lived

 

[steph5253]

By the way here's her update for today:

She is pretty much the same as yesterday maybe even moving a little bit more but she still is not eating very much.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

Mine always ate well when sick, they just simply wasted away.
Seminolewind & I both live in the same climate; near the coast, heavy plant life with plenty of spores & pollen blowing around, hot & humid jumgle like climate with plenty of moldy rotten leaves on the ground the chickens are always scratching around in.

 

[seminolewind]

Mine ate well, too but wasted away. By the time they looked lethargic or sick, it was near the end.

Chickenlegs, I just moved my last hens out into a covered pen and no coop.

Good chuckle on the useless roosters. All you have to do is get real real attached to a rooster and he will get it too.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I don't have any coops, just covered roosts and they are under some large shady oak trees at the north end of my barn where everything"s always dark, damp & moldy, even when it aint raining. Seriously thinking about moving the whole works out into the sunshine where it's a little more dry and healthy. That would probably fix my problem.