6 week old silkie Cochin still stumbling- what's wrong?

[Lochloosachicks]

How do you know for sure?

 

[rebrascora]

You don't unless he dies and you get a necropsy, but if he has a secondary attack that would be pretty damning evidence. Once you have Marek's in your flock and you have been dealing with it for a while you recognise the lack of co-ordination they exhibit which is very different to a bird that has an injury and consciously favours a particular limb due to pain.

 

[Lochloosachicks]

So will some birds actually fully recover or will all usually die?

 

[rebrascora]

You have to remember that we will all die eventually.... it is the length and quality of life that is important, the latter maybe more than the former. It is easy to lose sight of that when you are dealing with a disease like Marek's
Sadly the ones that I have had recover, have not lived extensive lives and some were victims to other fatalities than further attacks of Mareks.... a fox got my lovely Hope when she was out free ranging one day, after she had survived 2 attacks of Marek's but she was happy and laying eggs and enjoying her life up until that point.... she had a far better life than many chickens. I am pretty certain she would not have survived a third bout of the disease as the second one took 4 months of TLC to regain mobility. I had a young bantam cockerel that completely recovered, so you could not tell apart from the fact that he was a bit thinner than he should be when you picked him up. He had the life of Riley making a nuisance of himself with my laying flock ladies, mating any he could sneak up on. I didn't have the heart to cull him as he was such a character (and there was no meat on him anyway) and the girls gave him a good peck and chased him off when they realised who had caught them, so they really weren't that harassed by his attention, like I have witnessed with larger cockerels that are domineering. He was just a Cheeky Charlie. He went over a year before a fox got him. Sadly, I have had to resort to penning my flock, which itself caused stress when they had all been used to free range and I'm pretty sure that is what triggered another 2 year old hen to have 2nd attack which sadly she succumbed to after 10 weeks of battling it.
You have to focus on the good times in between the odd bout of illness with it and see the ones that survive or appear to be resistant rather than view it only in terms of the ones that succumb.
When my flock first got it I did a lot of reading and was pretty demoralised by most of my research, but the reality has not been so bad and having lost birds to other issues like dogs and foxes and impacted crops and reproductive disorders like internal laying as well as processing surplus cockerels for meat myself, you start to realise that Marek's is just another hurdle that makes chicken keeping challenging but it doesn't make things unbearable. There is joy and heart break with everything in life and it usually evens out over the course of a lifetime.

That is my experience.

 

[Lochloosachicks]

I completely agree. Although, I don't think he ever had mareks. I think he just had a sprain and others were thinking it was mareks. I have lost SEVERAL chickens to dogs, hawks, and sickness. I'm hoping our turnover slows down a bit. I'm starting to think I'm doing something wrong. I cannot go a month without a sick bird, that usually dies. I think a lot of my birds are carriers of respiratory diseases and possibly mareks. I've probably lost 15 hens to sickness in the last year(my first year of Chicken farming). Most have appeared to have something respiratory, others just random and quick. I currently have 19 full grown and 17 babies that I just got to replenish the flock. I'm getting frustrated and wondering if this is normal.

 

[rebrascora]

I've probably lost 15 hens to sickness in the last year(my first year of Chicken farming). Most have appeared to have something respiratory, others just random and quick.

To lose so many birds in your first year is a strong indication that your flock may well have Marek's, especially if they were mostly young birds under a year old. Marek's is the AIDS of the chicken world. Many can have it but show no symptoms for weeks, months or even years until something triggers it. It suppresses the immune system and makes them vulnerable to secondary infections like respiratory disease and coccidiosis as well as the visceral tumours which develop and can kill them very suddenly with no obvious symptoms, so that ties in with what you have experienced.
I am quite surprised that you have not had a necropsy done before now with so many losses, but I guess when there is no pattern to their deaths you might put it down to bad luck. Whilst paralysis is a more classic symptom of the commoner strains of the disease, many birds do now exhibit these neurological symptoms. I would strongly recommend that you get a necropsy on the next one you lose to illness and request Marek's testing.

Are your new chicks hatched from your own flock or bought in from a hatchery and if so, did you get them vaccinated? If they are hatched from your surviving birds they may have developed a level of resistance which should hopefully mean losses are less, but if they are hatchery and not vaccinated and it is Marek's you may be in for more heavy losses, I'm afraid.