Hi everyone,
I'm from the UK and started keeping chickens last year as we live in a village and have a really large garden! We first got 3 chicks that were about 6 weeks old from a local guy and it turns out they are large fowl.
We then got 3 bantams that were point of lay from a different guy and put them in a separate coop to the large fowl though they share the garden. We then added 3 more bantams to the second coop, all bantams were from the same guy.
After a couple of weeks we noticed one of the bantams couldn't walk on her right leg, she would just fall over and couldn't balance. We checked her out and there were no signs of injury and her wings were fine, eyes were fine and she was eating, drinking and pooping totally normally apart from the leg just wouldn't work. We separated her from the others and kept her in an outbuilding where it was warmer and she continued to eat fine, poop fine, drink fine and everything apart from that leg she still couldn't use it.
She's been inside for a few weeks now and when we checked on her today she is walking again?? She is a little wobbly but she is walking again and the leg is working!
So now we don't know what to do? We thought it might be Mareks as that's what everyone was saying but other than the lame leg she had no other symptoms and now it seems to have gone? I contacted the guy we got her off and he said he had had no illnesses with any of his birds ever and none of our other birds have been ill or became ill.
My partner wants to put her back with the others but I am worried that if it is Mareks she will give it to the others and they will all die but he seems to think that they would be ill by now if they could get it as she lived with them for a few weeks.
About 3 of them are laying and the others are at point of lay so they are not babies but I am sure I read somewhere that even if they recover from Mareks they can never be put back with the other chickens? The guy we bought her off told us to just cull her ages ago but we love our birds they're like our pets and he just culls loads of his for the sake of it (cockerels etc) and we could never do that but she can't live alone forever either??
If anyone has any experience of this I would be super grateful as Mareks doesn't seem to be that common in the UK, most people tend not to know about it?
Thanks
Elaine
I'm from the UK and started keeping chickens last year as we live in a village and have a really large garden! We first got 3 chicks that were about 6 weeks old from a local guy and it turns out they are large fowl.
We then got 3 bantams that were point of lay from a different guy and put them in a separate coop to the large fowl though they share the garden. We then added 3 more bantams to the second coop, all bantams were from the same guy.
After a couple of weeks we noticed one of the bantams couldn't walk on her right leg, she would just fall over and couldn't balance. We checked her out and there were no signs of injury and her wings were fine, eyes were fine and she was eating, drinking and pooping totally normally apart from the leg just wouldn't work. We separated her from the others and kept her in an outbuilding where it was warmer and she continued to eat fine, poop fine, drink fine and everything apart from that leg she still couldn't use it.
She's been inside for a few weeks now and when we checked on her today she is walking again?? She is a little wobbly but she is walking again and the leg is working!
So now we don't know what to do? We thought it might be Mareks as that's what everyone was saying but other than the lame leg she had no other symptoms and now it seems to have gone? I contacted the guy we got her off and he said he had had no illnesses with any of his birds ever and none of our other birds have been ill or became ill.
My partner wants to put her back with the others but I am worried that if it is Mareks she will give it to the others and they will all die but he seems to think that they would be ill by now if they could get it as she lived with them for a few weeks.
About 3 of them are laying and the others are at point of lay so they are not babies but I am sure I read somewhere that even if they recover from Mareks they can never be put back with the other chickens? The guy we bought her off told us to just cull her ages ago but we love our birds they're like our pets and he just culls loads of his for the sake of it (cockerels etc) and we could never do that but she can't live alone forever either??
If anyone has any experience of this I would be super grateful as Mareks doesn't seem to be that common in the UK, most people tend not to know about it?
Thanks
Elaine
