Big Bad Mareks

[Bkaye]

It is my understanding on the vaccine that it is only effective in day old chicks and they must be quarantined away from any possible Marek’s dander for a minimum of 4 days for the vaccine to work. If those babies are on your property that you vaccinated and you had already been going from your other birds to your babies there’s a chance it may not work. Especially if you wore the same clothes.

I have Marek’s here and it has been an emotional rollercoaster. There have been days I’ve told my husband I am done and these birds will live out the rest of their lives and that’s it. Then there’s other days where I see how well they are doing and I contemplate getting vaccinated birds.

When my first bird shows signs of Marek’s I had a bantam Cochin sitting on a few lf eggs. All of my lf birds were vaccinated from the hatchery, however none of my bantams were vaccinated, they came from tsc. A couple days before hatch we got our diagnosis and I was devastated. This was last January.

The September prior we purchased quail D’anver hatching eggs. We hatched out 11. We ended up loosing all 11. One male and one female almost made it to their year neither before succumbing.

Since that time I lost one of those 2 babies that hatched out at 8mo old. She was laying and started to act lethargic. I suspected she had cancer. My husband and I performed a necropsy and posted pics on the forum to help us figure out what may have gone wrong.

We had another bantam go broody so we hatched out 3 more lf shortly before the easter if this year. Around the same time we found some more danger eggs that were told they had bred for resistance. We figured we would give it another sho and hatched out 13. To date we have lost all but 3 (2 females and a male). One of the females started to lay in October and the other has yet to start. My male I currently have isolated, I originally thought he was have symptoms from Marek’s but the more I watched the more I wondered if it was an injury as it hasn’t presented like any of the others I’ve had. He started off limping but he holds his foot up and doesn’t want to put weight on it. He’s been isolated about a week now and seems to be doing significantly better. I plan to keep him in the dog crate until the limp is gone to keep from the injury reoccurring. All 3 of my lf I hatched out of this batch are doing great. 1 has yet to start laying.

Out of my original 6 bantams that I kept I have 3 left. Which are 2 Cochins and a silkie. My original D’anver boy I lost recently to what I suspect to be tumors.

I have seen all 3 versions of Marek’s here. Most of my young birds present with paralysis prior or right around pol. The boys will present with paralysis around the time their hormones kick in. Here is usually around 13-22 weeks. Typically after that they waste away. They will eat like they are starving but they don’t absorbed the nutrients and they rapidly lose weight and get weak. I have also had occular Marek’s. I have only noticed the occular form in my lf. Both girls that I saw with occular passed. One was one of my original vaccinated birds, she died right at her one year bday and the other was the baby that was hatched out mentioned above.

I have noticed with my birds having marked their immune system is down and I constantly battle coccidiosis. When I have chicks I have to go through several rounds of corid, sulfa and tultrazuril to get it under control and I still end up with losses due to the coccidiosis. A couple months ago one of my Danvers came down with enteritis due to some type of infection. I thought she was starting with Marek’s until I saw her pass blood. Started her on sulfa and she made a full recovery. I also have to work my birds monthly.

We have a high worm load here and with my flocks weekend immune system it gets out of hand if I don’t address it monthly.

With all the issues I’ve had due to Mareks I’ve learned a lot as well as what to looks for and spot the signs. We have bought the stuff and learned to perform our own fecal float. This is how we were able to confirm we were still dealing with coccidiosis even after several rounds of tultrazuril and sulfa.

Within the past couple months I have started to ferment my all flock feed. I’m hoping by doing this is will keep their immune system up better and hopefully if/when I have chicks it will give them a leg up against coccidosis.

 

[2ndTink]

I did some research on washing eggs that have Mareks dander on them and I can't find much on it in line or here on BYC other than the following, start here...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-histopathology-results.1499707/post-25064246

I gather the basic protocol is to just incubate eggs and vaccinate chicks. I would definitely wash your hands before gathing eggs, use disposable gloves to collect them. You might use a proper egg cleaner although cleaning eggs can push bacteria abd viruses further into the porous shell. I would definitely wipe the eggs off with maybe a clean dry microfiber cloth if nothing else.

Odd, I hadn't read anything about the Brinsea egg and incubator wash, it seems that should have popped right up. I found info on using hydrogen peroxide and a really good one when they did multiple methods and test incubated the eggs. I'll look for the link....

The other two were using hydrogen peroxide and a friend's friend uses Gold Listerine.

 

[Debbie292d]

Oops, I wrote a post and didnt post it yesterday!
D+1 on vaccination, you'd never know they all got an injection yesterday, so that is good. The older birds are on Organic All Flock with additions of nutritional yeast, Poultry Cell, and Fertrell Breeder supplement, one at a time, and once or twice a week. The younger chicks are on Organic Chick starter with one of the three supplements added almost daily.

Now it's D+2, still looking 100%.

I do have some questions for future hatches, what can I do to sanitize the eggs before setting? I'll have eggs from other breeders, but if I add eggs from my coop there is a chance there would be virus on the shell. I know it doesn't pass through the egg, but what about any dander on the outside of the shell? As soon as they hatch they flop around all over those shells and it seems it would be best if there was a way to make sure the bacterial and viral load is minimized or eliminated.

Odd, I hadn't read anything about the Brinsea egg and incubator wash, it seems that should have popped right up. I found info on using hydrogen peroxide and a really good one when they did multiple methods and test incubated the eggs. I'll look for the link....

The other two were using hydrogen peroxide and a friend's friend uses Gold Listerine.

Have you heard of Odoban? It kills marek's and about everything else known to man.

We have it in concentrate in a gallon jug but it comes in sprays too. You can get it online or in most stores, but we got ours from my folks from Sam's Club a decade ago.

This would be for coops, homes, incubators, etc., but I tried to find out if it could be sprayed on eggs or to disinfect hatching eggs and not finding anything.

 

[Bkaye]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with Mareks! And yikes, all 3 versions of Mareks, I don't know for sure but I am assuming I just have the 1 version of "classical" Mareks. With my unvaccinated silkies I've had 3 pullets at 4 to 5 months old present symptoms, no symptomatic males yet and I have 6 cockerels from my July '23 hatch.

I know vaccinating my chicks might not be effective, but I wanted to at least try. Have you vaccinated any of your home hatched chicks?

I have read about chickens with Mareks being more susceptible to cocci as well. I've only had to treat my flock for cocci the one time and that was 2 years ago, I did treat my pullets this spring, there wasn't bloody stool, but there was a week where it seemed there was intestinal shed and it was about 2 weeks after moving them from the brooder to the coop. I don't know if it was actually cocci, but I used Corod just in case.

Thank you so much for sharing your first hand experience ❤ please share away, I am information hungry!

I have not vaccinated any of my home hatched chicks. Any chick that I do hatch out here I do not plan to vaccinate. Some things I’ve read and so far has held true for my lf is that if the parents are vaccinated they seem to pass on some sort of resistance on to their offspring.

Any new chick that I bring I bring in will be vaccinated but I do want to try to breed for resistance too.

 

[Bkaye]

Have you heard of Odoban? It kills marek's and about everything else known to man.

We have it in concentrate in a gallon jug but it comes in sprays too. You can get it online or in most stores, but we got ours from my folks from Sam's Club a decade ago.

This would be for coops, homes, incubators, etc., but I tried to find out if it could be sprayed on eggs or to disinfect hatching eggs and not finding anything.

Oxine is another. I have heard that some have washed eggs in oxine prior to incubating. I have not tried it myself however.

 

[Bkaye]

I've read that Egyptian Fayomis (I may be spelling that wrong) have good natural resistance, I've looked at them already from hatcheries, if home vaccination doesn't work, I may try this breed vaccinated from the hatchery.

I wasn't going to hatch eggs from my oldest BAs but they are super healthy and still great layers, so I may need to find the right rooster to cross with them. I don't want silkie BA crosses, and my only other option is a 3yr old EE rooster, which might be a decent cross. The oldest BAs and the EE rooster have never seemed off or sick or anything and the hens from the same purchase as the rooster are great layers and healthy as well. I may put the BAs and EEs together with the EE roo to get some good layers going.

From people I have spoke with that have marked their mixed breeds seem to do best. I pm’d @microchick when I first learned I had Marek’s, she has dealt with it for years. She has Egyptian fayoumis . From my understanding hers has done really well and she has bred them with her resistant Amish birds.

I really wanted to do the fayoumis however I cannot let my birds free range due to a lot of cats in the area that are feral and they do not do well at all in a non free range environment.

 

[Debbie292d]

I've read that Egyptian Fayomis (I may be spelling that wrong) have good natural resistance, I've looked at them already from hatcheries, if home vaccination doesn't work, I may try this breed vaccinated from the hatchery.

I wasn't going to hatch eggs from my oldest BAs but they are super healthy and still great layers, so I may need to find the right rooster to cross with them. I don't want silkie BA crosses, and my only other option is a 3yr old EE rooster, which might be a decent cross. The oldest BAs and the EE rooster have never seemed off or sick or anything and the hens from the same purchase as the rooster are great layers and healthy as well. I may put the BAs and EEs together with the EE roo to get some good layers going.

I never knew there were ones more resistant than others. Nice! Maybe this is an idea if some better Marek's cures or treatments or preventions don't come out and it keeps spreading, why not switch to birds that resist it?

I'd be sad to switch but if I lost them all and had to start over, I'd sure look to make my life easier.

 

[TwoCrows]

We vaccinated the 30 silkies and silkie crosses this AM, it was pretty smooth, and I'm satisfied that we'll have no issues vaccinating newly hatched chicks in the future! The smallest chicks did some head shaking and mad peeping after releasing them back in the brooder. The oldest birds seemed completely unphased.

I've been keeping an eye on them all afternoon but they don't seem any worse for the experience.

Fabulous! I am sure this gives you some relief and confidence in taming down the Mareks. Glad it all went smoothly and everybody did well. This is a great first step!

 

[2ndTink]

Fabulous! I am sure this gives you some relief and confidence in taming down the Mareks. Glad it all went smoothly and everybody did well. This is a great first step!

I'm really hoping it provides adequate protection, the hard part is that I may not know if it helped for 6 or more months!

 

[TwoCrows]

Oops, I wrote a post and didnt post it yesterday!
D+1 on vaccination, you'd never know they all got an injection yesterday, so that is good. The older birds are on Organic All Flock with additions of nutritional yeast, Poultry Cell, and Fertrell Breeder supplement, one at a time, and once or twice a week. The younger chicks are on Organic Chick starter with one of the three supplements added almost daily.

Now it's D+2, still looking 100%.

I do have some questions for future hatches, what can I do to sanitize the eggs before setting? I'll have eggs from other breeders, but if I add eggs from my coop there is a chance there would be virus on the shell. I know it doesn't pass through the egg, but what about any dander on the outside of the shell? As soon as they hatch they flop around all over those shells and it seems it would be best if there was a way to make sure the bacterial and viral load is minimized or eliminated.

I did some research on washing eggs that have Mareks dander on them and I can't find much on it in line or here on BYC other than the following, start here...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-histopathology-results.1499707/post-25064246

I gather the basic protocol is to just incubate eggs and vaccinate chicks. I would definitely wash your hands before gathing eggs, use disposable gloves to collect them. You might use a proper egg cleaner although cleaning eggs can push bacteria abd viruses further into the porous shell. I would definitely wipe the eggs off with maybe a clean dry microfiber cloth if nothing else.