8 week old pullet limping for past 5 days

[Pandang81]

Great! The nail cutting will cause only very minimal pain. After you take the samples if the nails keep bleeding, direct pressure will cause it to stop. I push hard against the nail nub for about 60 seconds and that often does it.

Thanks for the info! A couple of questions. Will the chicken squirm a lot & try to get away with the nail clip? I want to be prepared.
How do I know how short to clip the nail to make it bleed? I don’t want to under-do it but I don’t want to clip too short & have a bleeding mess either.

 

[azygous]

Clip in tiny increments until you see a tiny drop of blood emerge. That way, you won't have a gusher, just a tiny dot.

It helps to wrap a chicken tightly in a towel to confine the wings.

 

[Pandang81]

Also I am not sure whether turning at joint, will check. I have not tried placing her in a sling.

Both of her legs don’t work now. She flaps around and has a difficult time being mobile so I place her in front of food & water. She eats well & has more energy after the antibiotics but she’s visibly flustered not being able to move her legs. I think whatever she has is incurable so we plan to cull her once we submit her lab work for testing this week.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm so sorry to hear she's not improving.

 

[Pandang81]

I'm so sorry to hear she's not improving.

Also I tried getting her to walk but now that both legs aren’t working she cannot so she sits. She was getting rather dirty so I bathed her today in epsom salt and I noticed a few things. I saw some blood under the skin and what looked like possible swelling at the area with blood. Other than that she’s light & dark in several areas but since I’ve never bathed a chicken that could be normal? See pics.

I also overnighted all lab work for my chickens and will have her Mareks results and the other two by this Wednesday.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Poor thing!
I have no idea what would cause that

 

[Pandang81]

I got results back from Research Associates Laboratory ! She is positive for Mareks . But her flock mates who she was with for 10 days before I completely removed them to another cage out of her view tested negative!!!! And my outdoor chickens are negative!! Thank God!

 

[azygous]

That's a mixed blessing for sure. Glad the others escaped being infected. This seals her fate, though. There is no reason not to euthanize her to prevent infection of the flock and to save her further suffering.

 

[Pandang81]

OMG things got really weird with Research Associated laboratory results! So I got the results back and one was positive for Mareks and the other two negative so I assumed it was her. Turns out I was wrong! She was one of the two that tested negative! the results were:
1 . 14 week old Sick paralyzed Silkie mix- negative
2. her 12 week old flockmate pullet who is thriving and healthy -positive
3. Outdoor hen who has never been exposed to any of the young pulllets - negative
i was floored yesterday afternoon when I realized this so I called the lab! they told me that they may have mixed them up or that maybe the sick silkie has Avian Leuokosis & not Mareks so they would test all 3 samples again for both Mareks and Avian Leukosis at no additional charge. Today I got the results back and am floored.
1 . 14 week old Sick paralyzed Silkie mix- negative again for Mareks, positive for Avian Leukosis
2. her 12 week old flockmate pullet who is thriving and healthy -positive for Mareks and positive for Avian Leukosis
3. Outdoor hen who has never been exposed to any of the young pulllets - negative for both Mareks and Avian Leukosis
How is this even possible? I thought Avian Leukosis affected only older birds? So how could the young thriving pullet test positive for both? Are those tests accurate? My silkie mix didn’t present Avian Leukosis symptooms, she was neurological….she went over the rainbow bridge last night , but now I have to figure out what to do with the her thriving flock mates, one of which tested positive for BOTH Mareks and Avian Leukosis!!!!

 

[azygous]

Yes, it's possible. I'm sorry about this, and I understand completely how it feels to get this type of news. It can feel a lot like a meteor crashing though your roof.

The Marek's diagnosis is more troubling than the leucosis because Marek's is more likely to become symptomatic. Leucosis can strike at any age, but unless a pullet has had direct exposure to a symptomatic chicken, it's not that likely they will become symptomatic. I'm going by personal experience. Leucosis more often strikes older chickens whose immune systems are becoming less vigorous.

As far as dealing with these two viruses, educate yourself so you understand what you're dealing with. LL isn't the end of the world, and flocks live mostly normally with LL all the time. Marek's is the one that is going to be tough. This virus is much harder to deal with, and you might consider removing this particular chicken from your flock before others become infected because eventually they will.