Dead chicken/another sick - vet thinks Marek's

[jasonbennett1]

I had a 5 month old pullet die this past week and now a 6 month old cockerel is showing the same symptoms. They have lost a lot of weight despite continuing to eat. They have lost some motor function (they won’t fly up to roost, if set on their side they will have trouble standing). I took the first one to the vet and they took an x-ray. It showed a minor blockage and it had very mild coccidosis. However, several days later the fecal examination at the vet showed tons of coccidia. My other pullets have recently started laying so they are now on non-medicated feed. Could this be the problem or is the coccidosis a secondary problem? Baytril helped the first chicken, but only for a few days before she died. The vet prescribed Albon for the coccidia, but I’m afraid their explosion is just from reduced immune response due to the true problem.

Any suggestions?

Also, the sick chicken is isolated from the group, but is their something I should do to them for prevention?

 

[Judy]

I tend to be a bit suspicious of medical people (perhaps because I am one) but I suspect your vet is right. People have been having a lot of trouble with cocci the past year or two.

Here is an excellent article that I found on dlhunicorn's site:

http://www.avian.uga.edu/documents/pip/2003/0903.pdf

Pages 2-5 are about cocci.

This article is specific to broilers, but for cocci, chickens are chickens; perhaps it will help you figure out what is going on.

 

[robin416]

Yes, the explosion of cocci is from the birds being down. So you do need the Amprol or Sulmet or whatever to treat the cocci while its like this.

This sounds very much like they might have gotten in to something not good for them. What is your feed like? Do you have anything they can get in to? Have you possibly given them something they shouldn't have?

 

[jasonbennett1]

Quote:
They eat normal layer pellets along with table scraps. They do pick at my garden vegetables, and do sometimes eat tomatoes and pumpkins that don't look that good to me; but they all do it. I'm really not sure what it could be if it is bad food. I am still getting 5-7 eggs a day out of 9 pullets, so I assume they are feeling okay.

 

[robin416]

Stop the scraps and see if you can keep them away from the other veggies in the garden. Its best to eliminate what is not part of their main diet. Vegetables that won't make it to your table because of poor condition could also mean a problem for the birds.

There might be a problem with the others not allowing the birds that sunk so low to eat. It happens more than you might realize. See if you can bump the bird's weight up with cooked oatmeal, a wet mash made of its feed. Offer it some canned Tuna. If I want to get more protein in one of mine I buy uncooked, unflavored or breaded fish fillets. I cook those in the micro and feed it to the bird I want to boost.

Get the bird to eat and drink, you might have to work at it with constantly bugging it but it might be just not eating causing the problem.

FYI, Baytril has been found to not be as effective as Tylan in poultry. Tylan you can purchase at the feed store.

 

[jasonbennett1]

Talked to the vet again and she thinks it's Marek's. From what I read that's bad news for my flock. All the online resources I've found says there is no treatment. Does anyone know of anything I can do to help the remainder of my flock?

 

[robin416]

Be vigilant and provide extra support. Some might pull through. If you lose future chicks then its a good bet it was Mareks.

If you lose another the only way to ascertain whether it was Mareks or not is with a necropsy. This will be important to you in the future and to anyone that might get birds from you.

 

[jasonbennett1]

The irony is that the only person I have ever given birds to is the vet who is doing the diagnosis. She has 4 birds from me. It's a good thing for me; she has a vested interest in figuring out what's going on at my place.