HELP ME PLEASE!! I've already lost 2 girls from Marek's. I need guidance for future PLEASE

[Jezalilly]

You have only 4 birds right now?

Yes. Started with 5, lost 1 early to my dog, so then 4. Got 10 fertilized eggs 2 years later for broody Australorp. All 10 hatched and ended up keeping 3. Piccatta woke up crowing one morning so PiccatO (lol) went to a friend's farm. That left me with 6 as of a year ago. 2 of my original girls have passed in the last few months. Necropsy on both shows they were full of tumors. Now I have 4 and none are showing symptoms of being ill in any way.

 

[Jezalilly]

You have received amazing responses. Lots of great information. I have avian leucosis in my flock, and I can speak to that virus.

A necropsy on a dead chicken with tumors can only examine the affected organs and conclude that the preponderance of evidence points more strongly to either Marek's or LL. Sometimes pathology tests can confirm more closely one or the other, but not always.

Usually, when the sciatic nerve shows acute inflammation, that will point strongly to Marek's, but it can also indicate LL. When the liver is enlarged, that points more to LL than Marek's. It's not all that important. Both viruses produce tumors that will kill chickens. LL is the more forgiving of the two, though, and chickens are more able to develop resistance to that one. I've had LL in my flock for fifteen years and have lost comparatively few chickens.

What both viruses have in common is contagiousness. You have a closed flock now, and no chickens may be rehomed from it or eggs sold or chicks sold. You must be very careful not to track the virus around town on your shoes that you wear in the run, and you must not allow visitors to visit your flock and track the virus off your property on their contaminated shoes.

If you wish to start over, as has been mentioned, LL is easier to eradicate from the premises than Marek's, but a waiting period of about a year will usually suffice to be sure Marek's is gone. LL is shorter lived in the environment and a period of a few weeks to a few months is usually adequate.

You may add chickens at any time, but unless you know for certain which virus your flock has, I would get Marek's vaccinated chicks and avoid introducing adult chickens to the flock. Healthy young chicks have a much better chance to develop resistance to LL.

My personal experience is that chicks hatched from an LL flock have a very high mortality rate, either dying before hatch or dying before age one year. Also, new chicks bought from outside can develop LL from close exposure to a broody hen with active LL symptoms and the outcome will be very heartbreaking.This happened recently in my flock when I allowed new chicks to be brooded by a hen who adopted them.

It's not the end of the world to have an avian virus in your flock. Just be aware of the things you won't be permitted that you would otherwise with an uninfected flock. My flock is healthy and normal and happy. So am I.

I've read and re-read this response at least 5 times... so far...lol. I'm so grateful that you took the time to be so insightful and kind to help me.
I have so many things running through my mind, more questions by the second...and am determined to do right by my girls.
Thank you again for your kindness in sharing your experience and knowledge.

 

[azygous]

If you have more questions, please ask. Knowing how to deal with an avian virus in your flock makes it very manageable. After awhile, you will almost be able to forget it's in your flock.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I don’t believe future chickens need to be vaccinated. That may make things worse in the long term. Long term, you want to breed a flock that’s naturally resistant to Mareks. Breed your survivors that don’t develop symptoms. In a couple of generations, your birds may not ever show signs of ever having it.

I suggested that they get vaccinated birds because breeding for resistance can be a heartbreaking process, and one that someone who simply has chickens as pets probably wouldn’t want to do anyway. @microchick is breeding for resistance to Marek’s and I believe they culled all their original birds after most of them (and their offspring) died of the virus.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Vaccinating doesn't prevent the disease. It can prevent some of the symptoms of the disease.
If you have vaccinated chicks you may not know you have the disease continuing on in your flock.

If they already know they have Marek’s in their flock and they aren’t breeding for resistance, it can be assumed that their flock still has Marek’s.

 

[microchick]

I suggested that they get vaccinated birds because breeding for resistance can be a heartbreaking process, and one that someone who simply has chickens as pets probably wouldn’t want to do anyway. @microchick is breeding for resistance to Marek’s and I believe they culled all their original birds after most of them (and their offspring) died of the virus.

Close, Roosters. After the initial outbreak in my flock, I was left with less than ten of my original flock of hens and none of my roosters. Of their successive generations of chicks, I was left with one hen. I lost over 2/3rds of my flock. When the die off started I had approximately 37 birds. It's been a lot of years ago so the number is kinda blurred.

The problem I encountered was in spite of having surviving hens to breed from, none of my second generation of birds survived except for the single hen. I'm wondering now if the fact that I couldn't get a rooster to survive longer than 2 years was the problem behind that. The vet at MIZZOU's veterinary medicine lab told me not to consider birds resistant until they reached the age of 3-4 longer if they survive.

I invite the OP to read my article:

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

I introduced Egyptian Fayoumis to my flock due to their genetic resistance to MD, vaccinated Old English Game Bantams and hatched eggs from an Amish neighbor's flock that weren't showing any symptoms of MD. The latter proved to be truly resistant to the local variation of MD in our area.

I hatched 6 EF chicks this year in my incubator and 8 bantam chicks and two barnyard/EF cross birds under a broody this year. My 3rd generation on the bantams and EFs. All are so far thriving.

I haven't had a chance to read all of the posts. There is the speculation that vaccinated hens pass on resistance through chicks hatched from their eggs. If my OEGBs are any indication, this could be a valid point to explore.

I'm so sorry that the Marek's club on BYC has a new member. It's a horrible heartbreaking disease and the scourge of chicken flocks everywhere but you are not alone.

Just hang on. It will take time but it will get better. The thing is you can't prevent it from happening. MD is everywhere so don't beat yourself up. To this day I do not know how it got in my flock of birds that I bought as resistant chicks. To this day I say 'If only I had bought vaccinated birds.' Hind sight is always 20/20. When all is said and done we can only do the best we can do. The rest is in a greater power's hands.

 

[bhawk-23]

So I'm feeling a bit confused after reading through all of the replies and articles I've researched.

@Jezalilly
I'm sorry you are dealing with this. All aspects, the questioning, medicating, watching, euthanizing and all the other c*** is just so dang hard.

I closed my flock and contacted the two farms I had sent pullets and cockerels to. Every bird that left my property, before the symptoms started, is thriving as well as the flocks they joined.

After losing one this past Sunday (6 in total now) I made a last minute purchase of 5 chicks even though I said I would not add any. I've just picked them up and they are adorable! It's the first time I've looked at a bird inside my house with excitement (not sorrow and sadness) since June.

I bought from My Pet Chicken and vaccinated for Marek's. I'm using a new tote and my cat's bowls. They will stay inside away from the flock for the first 2 weeks.

But from what I've read, here and articles, it would seem that the vaccinated chicks can actually make my currently symptom free hens more sick because it is a "leaky" vaccine? Am I understanding this correctly? Take away the stress of adding to the flock as I am as prepared as I can be for this, just the addition of vaccinated chicks in the flock, who could be shedding the virus, can make the original flock more sick?

 

[microchick]

That is a tough question @bhawk-23. I can only speak from my own experience dealing with vaccinated chicks/birds and what I've noticed with my flock is that I haven't lost any vaccinated birds to MD. About 6 months after I brought home my first OEGB vaccinated chicks from Orschelns, my deaths slowly started to subside.

About the same time I reached the hard decision to cull my original flock. I had about 12 birds left. Their laying was falling off and I wasn't able to get 2nd generation birds to survive longer than one year. I suspected that it was because all of my roosters weren't proven survivors but other than have them (the hens) sitting around spreading infected dander, I had them butchered and used them as pet food. Their lives stood for something that way.

What I have read is the suspicion that vaccinated hens can pass on resistance to their chicks the same way resistant hens can.

At the momente I have 10 Egyptian Fayoumis. Vaccinated on top of being genetically resistant to MD along with about 25 bantams from an original 7 birds (that were vaccinated) I also have about 15 Amish barnyard mixes, unvaccinated.

I haven't lost a bird to MD knock on wood cross my fingers, sling a dead cat over my head, in over 4 years. So for me, brining in vaccinated birds was a win win scenario.

The way I looked at it was the worse that could happen would be they would die....or not. Luckily they didn't and they seemed to help the overall health of my flock.

Now what I've heard/read is that you can boost the resistance of your flock by keep a couple of turkeys in with them. Or even by putting some used turkey bedding in with your chicken bedding.

Turkeys carry their own form of Marek's disease which is basically a herpes virus in chickens and turkey's also. Only it doesn't make turkeys sick. BUT this milder strain can infect chickens but not fatally so. The exposed chickens recover and are more resistant to the strain of MD that is fatal to chickens.

Do a google search and read up on it. This is one of those times where you can self educate yourself easily thanks to Dr. Google.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

The best thing you can do is keep your flock as stress free as possible. Stress alone, of adding to a flock, can cause the disease to rear it's ugliness.

Keep your flock on a balanced diet. Don't over feed treats. Balanced diet alone can prevent other serious problems.

Can molting be a trigger for marek symptoms? Ty

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

I'm in New Orleans, LA. I just want to do right by my girls and future girls. I'd be bummed to send one of my deceased girls away...I cremated Parmesan and Marsala. Yes, I get A LOT of ribbing because of this...lol. The thing is, I cremated my dogs and my chickens are pets too. Anyway, I'll deal with that when/if time comes.
For now I need to focus on getting as much information as possible and making responsible decisions moving forward in order to give my girls the best life I can.

Same boat. Thanks for sharing. It helps everyone going through this to know they are not alone. The pros of BYC are A+mazing. Chicken people are the best! I wish they were on my phones speed dial. I need to start hanging out with farm people so i can call them on the phone! The typing is horrible when super stressed about an emergency. Anyway, all we can do is our best. Sometimes we dont know what to expect until we are faced with it! The learning curve is for real. I too love my chickens as my pets and hate to see anything wrong. Sometimes i feel I'm not tough enough, but, here we are.......toughin' it out. Thinking of you Jeza. Btw, i love naming chickens after foods too, lol my 2 are Delicious & chicken wing, lol.