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BlueBaby said:
Here's an interesting thread about vaccinating chick's or not for Marek's.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-can-kill-your-unvaccinated-chickens.1491344/
Click to expand...
I've read a little about Marek's changing nature and vaccines driving it before. Definitely makes you pause for thought. I've been vaccinating against it for years and not sure if that's good or bad.

I have vaccinated and unvaccinated birds together all the time and no mareks anywhere. I started vaccinating because I did have a mareks outbreak something like 10 or so years ago. It took a lot of work to rid my property of it and I had to go chickenless for a long while to do it. I don't actually need to vaccinate since I haven't seen mareks in a bird since that episode so long ago.

At any rate, just want to be sure everyone knows that the vaccine doesn't cause Mareks. It does help keep birds who catch it after vaccination alive. So if you vaccinate, and your birds catch mareks afterwards, they can survive and then make unvaccinated birds sick. But only if they catch mareks after vaccination, not from the vaccinations themselves. Having unvaccinated birds with your vaccinated birds helps you to know if mareks makes it into your flock so you can respond accordingly. Either culling or closing your flock.

Editing to add that if your unlucky enough to have Marek's get into your flock, having vaccinated birds means you can collect eggs to incubate so you don't lose all your years of work on a breed. Even if you decide to cull the infected adults. Mareks doesn't pass into the eggs. It's like that old song about a cake left out in the rain..."cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again" 🤷‍♀️
 
Last edited:
ChicksnMore said:
I've read a little about Marek's changing nature and vaccines driving it before. Definitely makes you pause for thought. I've been vaccinating against it for years and not sure if that's good or bad.

I have vaccinated and unvaccinated birds together all the time and no mareks anywhere. I started vaccinating because I did have a mareks outbreak something like 10 or so years ago. It took a lot of work to rid my property of it and I had to go chickenless for a long while to do it. I don't actually need to vaccinate since I haven't seen mareks in a bird since that episode so long ago.

At any rate, just want to be sure everyone knows that the vaccine doesn't cause Mareks. It does help keep birds who catch it after vaccination alive. So if you vaccinate, and your birds catch mareks afterwards, they can survive and then make unvaccinated birds sick. But only if they catch mareks after vaccination, not from the vaccinations themselves. Having unvaccinated birds with your vaccinated birds helps you to know if mareks makes it into your flock so you can respond accordingly. Either culling or closing your flock.
Click to expand...
I don't vaccinate any of the one's that I hatch over here, and all of mine seem to be healthy.
 
Do any of you use wood chips/mulch in your run? Where do you buy chicken-safe wood chips/mulch? I know not to use cedar. Places like Home Depot sell playground mulch which I assume (?) would be safe for chickens but it's like $650 for 10 cu yds and that's more than I could use at once and tree services want to dump a mountain of it in our driveway. 😳
 
EmmaDonovan said:
Do any of you use wood chips/mulch in your run? Where do you buy chicken-safe wood chips/mulch? I know not to use cedar. Places like Home Depot sell playground mulch which I assume (?) would be safe for chickens but it's like $650 for 10 cu yds and that's more than I could use at once and tree services want to dump a mountain of it in our driveway. 😳
Click to expand...
My run is just the dirt that it sits on.
 
EmmaDonovan said:
Do any of you use wood chips/mulch in your run? Where do you buy chicken-safe wood chips/mulch? I know not to use cedar. Places like Home Depot sell playground mulch which I assume (?) would be safe for chickens but it's like $650 for 10 cu yds and that's more than I could use at once and tree services want to dump a mountain of it in our driveway. 😳
Click to expand...
I also use just dirt in my runs. I do buy bags of wood chips though. Find it handy to always have around even if I don't use it for much. I buy it at the local feed store. I'm sure any feed store and tractor supply would carry chicken quality chips.
 
I'm trying to get a few things out there done in my coop and run today before the rain on Wednesday is supposed to happen. Got to fill all the dust bathing holes back up to give them more work to do to dig them all back up again. Time to change out the waters and put fresh water with a bit of acv in it. I hope that I won't have to put the misters back up for at lest a couple more months.
 

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