Dying left and right!

[whychickens2]

Welcome! I had a similar thing happen but with MG. I had 5 health birds and decided to buy from a nipi cert lady. I quarantined the new birds and brought them to me existing flock after 5 weeks. Soon all my burds were very sick i gave tylan and gatorade they recoverd but were never the same. I ended up having to cull my flock. I went back to this lady after the state vet said it was MG and i kinda had a feeling it was from her birds. I told her i was there to get more birds as i was picking sone out she picked one up and said wow shes quite thin i think ill have to dr her up before i sell her. I said what do you do with the birds that come down with illness. She saidi treat them and put them back with the flock..

... As i was standing there i kept hearing some birds sneezing amd shaking there heads. I didnt want to seem like inspector gadget and i bought two chicks from her amd left. One cochin chick died 2 days later the other silkie seemed ok but got sick after 6 weeks.... I still am so mad at her and i feel like she knows shes selling possible issues to people.
Im sorry this happend to you! Hopefully any new chicks will be ok! I wonder if you can keep them in another coop until they are old enough to not contract the virus?

 

[whychickens2]

Oh, one more thing.  I've been selling off or giving away my older hens the last couple of years to keep a younger flock that lays more eggs.  I guess I can't do that now that I have confirmed Mareks.  That's bad because we are all to wimpy to cull our sweet girls--we only eat the eggs, never the meat.  

Hmm...I'll have to figure out what to do about that.  I don't want to end up feeding 10 old biddies who are too old to give us eggs.  Lol  

Any suggestions?

We were to wimpy too....i called a few vets and finally found one that would do it. But i have seen a few ads on craigslist stating that they were not able to cull there flock if someone wanted to do it for the meat they would give them the chickens for free :/

 

[260906]

That's sad about your flock!

Last summer was the first time I was super careful about buying chickens. I thought I was doing things right for a change! I actually went to the breeder's house & checked everything out. She seems to take great care of her chickens. Every single one I saw looked healthy & robust, which is why I was willing to buy from her. I'm not sure if my flock got the disease from hers, or if mine already had it. I just found out a flock can contract Mareks without showing outward sympotms. I thought some always died when the virus first arrived, but guess that isn't true.

My dad has always culled any suffering/dying pets we've had. As he gets older, though, I think he's getting soft. ha ha Instead of culling one of our sick pullets in January, he let it run around on his property for several days until it died. He really wants chickens, but my mom doesn't. I wouldn't want to tempt him with older hens who look perfectly healthy. Mom would be furious with me if he ended up keeping them!

I have a couple of older girls I was going to sell this fall. I guess I'll figure out something when the time comes. It would be hard to give them to someone I knew was planning to eat them or cull them. They are all pets to us, and so far we've found good "forever homes" for the hens we've sold. (like people who just wanted chickens to keep bugs down in their yard)

 

[260906]

Hopefully any new chicks will be ok! I wonder if you can keep them in another coop until they are old enough to not contract the virus?

I don't have anywhere to isolate them. I've heard they are never really to old to show symptoms from it, & I think they'd have to be over a mile away to avoid catching the virus from the wind or wild birds. Our hens have been all over our acre multiple times, so I'm sure this neighborhood has no virus-free areas.

We will do our best not to get too attached to chicks from now on. The first one to die from our flock in January was the gray EE pullet I fell in love with the first day she hatched. What a sweet girl she was, and just about to start laying at the time she died!