I believe my 4 week old chicks have Mareks disease, help!

BellaPepper

Chirping
7 Years
Apr 28, 2014
2
0
60
We purchase 25 Red broiler meat chicks from McMurray Hatchery and received them almost a month ago. Two of them died within the first couple of weeks and now another one is sick. Her legs are paralyzed and stick straight out. I have her in a separate box with access to food and water, but I don't think she will make it much longer. The rest are all still in the garage and my plan had been to put them out into our new mobile chicken tractor today so that they could free range for the next 8 weeks.

We have 10 laying hens and a rooster currently in an enclosed pen and had planned to move them to the tractor once the meat hens had been butchered.

I am at a loss of what I should do to control this. The laying hens were vaccinated but the meat chicks were not. I am afraid that if I bring the possibly infected chicks out of the garage that they will infect the rest of our chickens. We have almost 2 acres so the furthest we could keep them apart would be 50 yards or so. Am I supposed to just cull the entire flock in the garage so as to save the rest of my flock and future flocks? Any advice would be appreciated...
 
We are having a similar problem. We acquired 8 chicks back in Dec of 2013. The Russian Orloff's started in with head shaking early on and by the time they were 4 months started showing problems with leg paralyses. We have lost 5 of the 8, a Maran, 3 Russians and an Amerauna. Two more are sick; a Russian and an Americauana. We have researched and have found very little info on treating them. The mortality rate is extremely high; pretty much 100%. It's a young bird disease; usually acquired before 24 months. If your other chickens are older then 6 months, they are pretty much in the clear and won't get it. We are sick of heart with this and so sorry that I can't offer you more positive information than this.
 
Merak's Disease is described as a Herpes virus. Our pullets showed sores in their mouths and paralyses in their legs. We are trying a garlic syrup that we made recently and got a homeopathic Herpes remedy from the local Health Food store. I am going to try some fermented foods and kefir on them. I'm hoping that the fermented foods will help.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom