Heart failure? Mareks?

[Zsuzzzs]

Hi everyone. I have a flock of 2 old rumpless araucana roos and 33 hens (but this number unfortunately gets lower time to time).
Last fall I lost 15 pullets in 3 months, and the lab confirmed that we have mareks disease, 2 types, the nervous and the tumour version.
After a lot of reading and discussion I decided not to eliminate the rest of my flock, but to only hatch and vaccinate from now on. Deaths finally stopped in December, the flock layers were doing fine work, and didn't have an issue until end of February, when my beautiful 1 yo black copper marans roo, Bastian was found in one of the nesting boxes, hiding, having something like an episode, really wide pupils, and totally unbalanced, with a probable sign of vomiting. Even with separating him immediately and trying to give hime vitamine B, unfortunately we lost him in a couple of hours. He might have been a bit less active in January but it was really cold (-14C° at nights) and he seemed like molting, so I thought it's just that.
Since that I had 2 deaths in March, one leghorn with typical Marek's, and the other a blue italian just yesterday, which is much more like Bastians. She did not have any previous symptoms, way laying last week, and was found in the same nesting box as Bastian, just breathing heavily, and had a little purple on the end of her comb. Bastian did not have purple comb until his death, and it wasn't as bad as I saw a lot elsewhere.
My question is - can this be another type of death due to Marek's, or is it something else?
Another info is that we're trying to deal with rats for 6 months now, with not much success, but we do not use poison at all, because of our chickens. But we live in a small city and there are plenty of other houses, so we don't know if the rats might be poisoned or not.
Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[BarbuDeWatermaelLover]

Hi everyone. I have a flock of 2 old rumpless araucana roos and 33 hens (but this number unfortunately gets lower time to time).
Last fall I lost 15 pullets in 3 months, and the lab confirmed that we have mareks disease, 2 types, the nervous and the tumour version.
After a lot of reading and discussion I decided not to eliminate the rest of my flock, but to only hatch and vaccinate from now on. Deaths finally stopped in December, the flock layers were doing fine work, and didn't have an issue until end of February, when my beautiful 1 yo black copper marans roo, Bastian was found in one of the nesting boxes, hiding, having something like an episode, really wide pupils, and totally unbalanced, with a probable sign of vomiting. Even with separating him immediately and trying to give hime vitamine B, unfortunately we lost him in a couple of hours. He might have been a bit less active in January but it was really cold (-14C° at nights) and he seemed like molting, so I thought it's just that.
Since that I had 2 deaths in March, one leghorn with typical Marek's, and the other a blue italian just yesterday, which is much more like Bastians. She did not have any previous symptoms, way laying last week, and was found in the same nesting box as Bastian, just breathing heavily, and had a little purple on the end of her comb. Bastian did not have purple comb until his death, and it wasn't as bad as I saw a lot elsewhere.
My question is - can this be another type of death due to Marek's, or is it something else?
Another info is that we're trying to deal with rats for 6 months now, with not much success, but we do not use poison at all, because of our chickens. But we live in a small city and there are plenty of other houses, so we don't know if the rats might be poisoned or not.
Thanks for your help in advance.

Honestly there is no way of knowing unless you perform an autopsy. The tumours from Marek can push on other organs and large vessels, they can cause ruptures and shock. Tumours can also cause heart faillure by pushing on vessels. It can be something completely else though. The vomiting chicken can also be mareks, sometimes the tumours make it hard to digest anything because intestines are pushed flat and the nervous type can cause crop paralysis. Ive had one hen die in the exact same way, it was the only chicken not vaccinated in my flock because we found her on the street a few years ago.

 

[Zsuzzzs]

The strange thing is that they are perfectly good weight, so I personally don't think it's the tumour on/near the stomach. I might have some time to do an "autopsy" myself today, but I don't know if I have the mind/heart to do so... It's usually my husband who does things like these, but he's really busy these days.
Thank for your ideas though. So it's not impossible it's still the mareks and not something else...

 

[coach723]

When you've had Marek's confirmed in your flock, then it's always going to be possible. I've found that not all symptoms follow the commonly described ones, there can be lots of variation depending on where exactly it's affecting their systems. Some breeds or genetic lines can be more susceptible as well. I lost every one of my brahma's, while others have said their brahama's have done well. There are also a lot of other things that can make them sick as well, so really, necropsy is the only way to know for sure. I still lose birds to non-Marek's illness.
Doing them myself used to really upset me, but it got easier with time. It's always sad, how could it not be? But I look at it as the last gift they give me, and their flock mates, by providing information and knowledge that can help in the future.
After the initial slew of losses, many find that their flock settles down and losses decrease and it's more managable. Though you will most likely still have periodic losses, it's much less than the first wave.
A professional necropsy could identify if there is any rodenticide poisoning involved. Rats are less of a risk for them to eat than mice, as the rats are larger. I don't like poison for the very reason that you can't control where they go or die, leaving all sorts of other animals at risk, but I did have to use it once. Sadly, rats are smart enough to avoid traps, and they travel a fair distance so can be really hard to get rid of. If you have places they can hide, spaces under buildings, piles of brush or debris, those are often the places they are living. Getting rid of those can help. But if your neighbors have places they can hide on their property, they can come from there. That was my situation and I finally had to resort to poison as they were literally chewing up my coop. I used closed bait boxes in the rafters where the chickens, or anything else, couldn't get to it. I never lost a bird and it took about 6 months to be sure there were no more rats.