can adult chickens be vaccinated for marek's?

[Borncountry419]

Yes, I know it's deadly. And I know any flock can get it. Lol. But the larger the flock, and the dirtier the conditions are (like if your coop smells like ammonia), the more likely your flock is to catch a disease.

 

[jujubee]

If I have not known several people in my 30 plus years with poultry that had small backyard flocks wiped out by Mareks then I would say it’s just another vaccine that the pharmaceutical giants are eager to sell. That being said, I do vaccinate my chicks and all purchased YOUNG adults. If I hatch them I do it. If I order them, I have the hatchery do it. I dont place incoming chicks with other chicks as part of overall health management so even if I did not personaly give my homegroen chicks the vaccine it would not matter. I can only imagine the environments where all those masses of eggs are laid that the hatcheries purchase. Think about Bio-Security for a minute. As a NPIP certified poultry flock owner I have to. Anyway, Mareks can travel on the wind, and on the flying wing of wild birds that just came from feeding at a infected farm many miles or states away. With the mega egg and broiler farms we have here in Ohio that alone is incentive enough for me.
Then you should of course quarantine new birds from the main flock area for 30 days in any event for good management. However there is even another route of infection that most flock owners fail to consider. Your visitors. Do they own birds of any kind? Have they just been to another breeder or a swap meet to look at chickens before coming to your place? They most likely are caring material from other birds on their persons. Don’t forget you could bring it back in yourself the same way.
Then there is the very alarming evidence of recent challenges with a highly virulent (vv and vv+) strain of Mareks. It like the previous strain kills all ages of birds.
I would say to those who say they have raised chickens for years and never seen it so it must not be a problem this.. People get hit by cars while crossing the street every day, but it hasn’t happened to you. If you look both ways before crossing so you don’t get hit. Then why would you not look both ways for your flock before the one, if maybe very slight chance, they may get hit.
I know it sounds paranoid but really the only safe flock is a vaccinated and clean flock. Your vet is correct.

 

[tinychicky]

okay, none of my older chickens are vaccinated, but i think i will start from now on, purely as a precaution, not because my coop is poorly maintained

 

[Borncountry419]

Why do some hatcheries not recommend it for small flocks? You'd think they would, since it's extra profit for them. It's not like it's causing more work and no return.

 

[Arielle]

There is a lot of misunderstanding about vaccinations, especially the "live" ones.

Actually "live" vaccines are the "modified live" vaccines; we tend to shorten things and unfortunately important words are lost, like "modified". THe reason it is modified is that you want your bird(or any animal) to have a tiny exposure to the proteins of the really bad unmodified truely scary bugs. To be on the safe side, the recommendations are to keep that animal vacccinated with a modified live isolated from unvaccinated for about 21 days, the time it takes for the animal to create the antibodies. THen they can be with other animals.

Vaccines are the future to disease resistance because the antibiotics available today are often not working as well in certain circumstances; vaccinations, in most cases, really do reduce a full blown case of the disease. Some vaccines are better than others. SOme work very well. Many of the avian diseases wipe out a large portion of the population which is why vaccines were developed for that disease; there was a financial benefit to both the pharmacutical(never could spell that word right

) companies and the animal owners. For example, my children are vaccinated for viral meningitis; I'm happy about that because there are no antibiotics for viral diseases. IN MAssachusetts, all children's vaccines are FREE, because they do work very well.

As long as an animal has a high titer (high immunoglobulins in the blood), that animal will have the special cells that can attack the invading organism. I agree that some vets over vaccinate, but usually the vaccination is "cheap"er than the testing for the titer level.

Does this make sense. PM me questions if need be.

 

[Imagesoart]

Ok, So I hatch a small amount of chicks. I checked with the local feed store. They sell the vaccine for $16. BUT, my understanding is that it has to be used within one hour of opening the vital and the chicks have to be vaccinated within one hour of being hatched. This could be a little restrictive for the small group of chicks that hatch 24-36 hours apart!

Am I misunderstanding something? Please advise...

 

[Borncountry419]

Ok, so basically it would be a waste of my money to vaccinate chicks or get them vaccinated when ordering them. I read that most flocks have been exposed to Marek's, so of course that would include mine. None of my flock is vaccinated, so I'm not quite sure how I'd prevent a tiny feather dander from falling into the vaccinated and quarantined birds brooders. "all or nothing" is what I keep seeing.

 

[xxIsabellaxx]

Quote:
I had my 2 year old Dark Cornish Hen Euthanized BAck in 2009. The Vet said it was definetly Mareks.

 

[mcf3kids]

Interesting thread and opinions - just like in humans we all have our own takes on whether or not to immunize. I don't know much about Marek's but as a nurse I decided to vaccinate when ordering my chicks because to me it just seemed logical.

 

[jadeybaby70]

Hi everyone. I am posting because I have first hand experience with Marek's in my small, clean flock. Last year, I brought home four pullets from a local breeder and had three of my chickens die. One was 1.5 years old. I sent the bodies to UC Davis for a necropsy and the results came back presumptive Marek's with tumors in the heart, lungs, muscle tissue and and nerves. I had a smaller flock at the time and was told when I purchased all of my birds that they were vaccinated. This is why I am more careful about where I buy my chicks now and if they are not vaccinated, I keep a vial and some syringes on hand. I did a lot of research on Marek's both before and after loosing my birds and read a lot of different things; many here on BYC. From what I found, here is the most reliable info I can provide:

Marek's usually manifests itself in birds from 4-24mo of age. If you have a bird that is 2yrs+ it is most likely that they have already come into contact with the virus or some form of it and have built up an immunity. This is called age resistance and is the "natural" and also the strongest form of immunity.

The actual Marek's vaccine is derived from the turkey strain and so cannot make your chickens die from the vax but can cause an immune reaction making your chicks seem sick.

Also, unvaccinated birds CANNOT get Marek's from Vaccinated birds. If any of you know the story about how the smallpox vaccine was created, this is exactly the same process. To "train" our bodies to be immune to smallpox, cowpox viruses are used which do not cause illness in us because viruses tend to be very species specific but because cowpox and smallpox are so closely related, they are used and our immune system learns to "recognize" certain proteins and attack the invader before it causes harm without the risk of killing ourselves in the process.

Now, from the research I have done, I believe that new chicks can get sick from older birds who have been "naturally" immune to Marek's because the birds are actually carriers and will be their entire life. Because of my experience, my chicks will always be vaccinated because my remaining flock are carriers.

I still would like to know, although I know I have read it elsewhere but cannot quite remember, can chicks that are more than a few days old be vaccinated? And if so what is the cut off age? Also, do chicks have antibodies transferred from their parents to help protect them until they can build their own immunity as is the case with live birth? Hmmmm... more research to be done here. If I can answer these mysely, I will share what I find.