Feeling frustrated: brought Marek's into my flock

[microchick]

I thought I did it right.

This is my second year with chickens. In February, I decided to expand my flock by adding blue and green egg layers. I found a local breeder that is active on my local groups. He had cream legbars and silverudds among others. Purchased 6 birds. 2 creams and 4 silverudds. All 3 weeks old. Very quickly I found that 3 of my silverudds were cockerels. No worries, I had a good breeder that had agreed to take the boys back.

I kept my 3 new girls in a brooder in the house for 4 weeks. There was a bump in the beginning with Coccidiosis in the beginning, but I treated for that and it cleared up. After 4 weeks I moved them to the see no touch section of the coop and run. After two weeks I merged. The girls stayed together but never really chickened like the others. I wrote it off as being different breeds to my existing collection of 20-- buffs, rocks, wyandottes, sussexs, and sexlinks.


Then around 17 weeks the first cream had leg paralysis. I tried so many things with that girl. Vitamins, syringe feeding...vet visits. We had her culled when we got the blood panel back for Marek's.

A week after that my year old Sussex had what we thought was a respiratory infection that wouldn't respond to antibiotics. She died. She was a strange girl that hard molted her first winter before she turned a year.

Then sudden death of the other cream.

Then one of my 1 year old wyandottes had rapidly developed tumors at the feather follicles. Lab work consistent with Marek's. She was culled. She hard molted her first winter before turning a year too.

Then sudden death of third new girl, the silverudd. Her comb never stood up. We suspected heart condition, but didn't get a necropsy.

During the time when new girls were in quarantine, one of the buffs hatched 4 barnyard mixes. Now one from that group was culled today for ocular Marek's. He was 22 weeks.

It seems that for the past several weeks, everyday I go out to the coop thinking, who is it going to be this time.


The coop is 8 x 12 with forced air ventilation. They have a 3,500 square feet of a completely enclosed aviary protected by hotwire. Water is a circulating system with UVA filtration.

All of my birds are pets. They have names. We give treats, have evening drinks. They chill at my feet and chatter at me with soft murmurs and purrs. Same with my 2 roosters.

This is my second year, and boy has it been a hard one.

I quarantined for 4 weeks and still brought disease into my flock. Now what do I do? A mass cull of current seemingly healthy birds seems pointless and cruel. Marek's is every where they have been and can stay there for years if I understand correctly. To start over would mean moving.

Thank you @penny1960 for the tag.

I'm so sorry @Sahraschweiss that you have to deal with this. You are not along. I've dealt with Marek's in my flock for almost 6 years now and while it's heartbreaking, frustrating, infuriating and a few other choice words that I can't print but it ISN'T the end for keeping chickens.

Instead of going into depth with my experiences I'm going to invite you to read about them in my recently published article here on BYC:

Killer in the Shadows. How My Flock and I Learned to Deal With Marek's Disease​

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-i-learned-to-deal-with-mareks-disease.76944/

If you have any questions feel free to ask. We help one another here on BYC.

 

[Folly's place]

I'm so sorry!
Keeping a closed flock, and getting vaccinated chicks, then having them isolated for at least two weeks, so they can build immunity to the tumors caused by the Marek's virus, will be best.
It's just not possible to eliminate all the dust and feathers that carry that virus at your property, so it's contaminated for possibly years.
It's likely that the above poster's birds from that Amish farmer were the offspring of Marek's survivors in an infected flock, which is why they have done better in her environment.
Biosecurity! Keep your chicken clothes and boots at home, don't drive your car out there, and don't spread this to anyone else's flock. No visitors to yours, no birds leaving, and vaccinated chicks will do best at someone else's place during those first two weeks after vaccination. Bleach and some other disinfectants do kill it, but don't try to share anything from your place, or with your new chicks.
You will have more losses, sadly, but it is possible to have chickens, realizing that things would have been better without this disaster.
Then, how about ducks instead? Something to consider...
Mary

 

[Folly's place]

Silkies notoriously are very prone to Marek's disease problems, I'd avoid them!

 

[kurby22]

I'm so sorry for you! I don't have any advice, but lots of sympathy. I brought in a couple of new pullets back in July and they ended up giving my entire flock mycoplasma and infectious bronchitis virus...so I too have to address biosecurity to ensure other folks don't get it exposed to their birds, I have a closed flock, and stress out with every strange sneeze, poop, or behavior. I love them so, and they are pets with added egg benefits, so I will just be a closed flock for now. I can decide later on if I want to start over, but not until I no longer have any more from this flock. I love them dearly and they bring me great joy. I know how heart breaking each loss is and I am so sorry that you have to deal with it.

 

[Folly's place]

When we started with chickens, about thirty years ago, we were lucky. Very lucky! Since then, we've still been lucky, in that no near neighbors have chickens, so no 'random source' birds available to infect our closed flock.
Paranoid biosecurity is very important having chickens!
It's so sad that you both are dealing with these problems, when they could have been avoided. With good care, hope your birds do as well as they can.
Mary

 

[microchick]

Silkies notoriously are very prone to Marek's disease problems, I'd avoid them!

Agreed as are Buff Orpingtons and Seabrights. I have two words. Egyptian Fayoumis. I added 5 to my flock and they are two years old now. I had them vaccinated but they are also genetically resistant to Marek's Disease to the point that there is genetic testing going on with them to try to determine why they are genetically resistant and if anything can be done to duplicate this resistance in the form of a vaccine or selective breeding.

 

[microchick]

The truth of the matter is you pay your money and you take your chances. There is just so much to consider when buying birds. I bought from an NPIP breeder who bred for resistance. I hold no grudges. They were resistant to the form of MD that was in the breeders area, just not resistant to the strain/s I have been dealing with.

Only bringing in local resistant birds and vaccinated birds has allowed me to keep chickens on our farm. Do I like vaccinating them? No. But I love keeping chickens so better for me to deal with vaccinated birds then to continue to dig little graves all over our yard.

Just please, if nothing else remember this. It will get better and you are not alone.

 

[kurby22]

The truth of the matter is you pay your money and you take your chances. There is just so much to consider when buying birds. I bought from an NPIP breeder who bred for resistance. I hold no grudges. They were resistant to the form of MD that was in the breeders area, just not resistant to the strain/s I have been dealing with.

Only bringing in local resistant birds and vaccinated birds has allowed me to keep chickens on our farm. Do I like vaccinating them? No. But I love keeping chickens so better for me to deal with vaccinated birds then to continue to dig little graves all over our yard.

Just please, if nothing else remember this. It will get better and you are not alone.

I really appreciated your article on your experience! While IBV is not as serious, it still sucks and I hate that I brought it into my flock. The breeder felt horrible and reimbursed me the cost of her birds, but I don't blame her and I didn't think it was necessary to give me my money back. I know that chickens are tough to keep healthy, easily stressed and are around all number of things that can kill them. It's hard because you love them so...thank you for sharing your experience. I'm so glad that you have had success with your locally adapted birds!! I have found it fascinating that none of my original 4 birds have shown any signs of the IBV or MG...despite interaction with all the chickens that did show signs of it. Science and resistance are complex and interesting to me. So thank you for sharing what you have learned!

 

[microchick]

I really appreciated your article on your experience! While IBV is not as serious, it still sucks and I hate that I brought it into my flock. The breeder felt horrible and reimbursed me the cost of her birds, but I don't blame her and I didn't think it was necessary to give me my money back. I know that chickens are tough to keep healthy, easily stressed and are around all number of things that can kill them. It's hard because you love them so...thank you for sharing your experience. I'm so glad that you have had success with your locally adapted birds!! I have found it fascinating that none of my original 4 birds have shown any signs of the IBV or MG...despite interaction with all the chickens that did show signs of it. Science and resistance are complex and interesting to me. So thank you for sharing what you have learned!

No problem Kurby, glad I could help.

Resistance is complex. As I wrote, I was hoping my resistant hens would be able to produce second generation resistant chicks for me. They didn't. I still suspect that it was because I didn't have any roosters that had survived to be over two years old let alone the 4 years that the MIZZOU vet recommended for me. I still scratch my head over that one.

I also wonder if the fact that the Amish Barnyard Crosses having some game bird in them hasn't been a factor to resistance. Closer to feral=more resistance same as the EF birds.

Marek's disease is the destroyer of dreams. I had hoped to breed rare birds hard to find in this area to sell as yard eye candy. I had a beautiful Lavender Orpington rooster who was to be the first purchase towards that project. He was one of the first to die. He just keeled over one day with me watching him, flapped around and died with both feet sticking up in the air which I read somewhere was a sign of heart attack/sudden death in chickens.

Now I am happy with my 30+ mutts, EF crosses and EF pure bred birds and my dozen or more vaccinated silver duck wing OEGBs and Black breasted red bantams. After you get through the initial purge the disease causes, you start to set your goals a lot lower and find joy in the simple things....like no dead birds for a week, then a month. Now I'm working on a year.

 

[McChooky]

Silkies notoriously are very prone to Marek's disease problems, I'd avoid them!

I will take your advise to avoid it happening and stay clear of them! Thanks!