Heel low:
Puppers are down for a puppy nap...so quickly will address Marek's Disease (MD).
Breed for resistance, those that live and live well, breed from them and make more. Those that get sick, are not your breeder birds. Set and hatch from eggs out of cocks and hens, not cockerels and pullets...by living they prove you should have more like them. Yer oldsters live because they are able to...
Marek's Disease is spread in the dander...as the old saying goes, "if yer chickens breathe, they have been exposed to MD!" MD is like ILT, it can come in on the very winds...you got no persons within ten mile radius, you don't show, you don't go to auctions, you don't have fellow chook persons visit, you don't come in contact with dust from other persons with birds...I guess THEN you may never get MD at your yard.
Since I don't live in a bubble...don't have my very AIR filtered (not sure exactly how you would clean air like that and if you could afford to do that sorta thing??)...then you gotta do what you gotta do. Some of those rough necked ready barnyard mutts thrive whereas coddled (<--more like you crippled them) and kept pristine clean birds don't. I am not against biosecure measures...do the best you are able in that regard but we cannot live perfectly safe, we run risks no matter what we try and how hard to be safe.
Why are the factory farms having crap fits over MD...because they breed for weak birds, busted legs, heart attacks, can't survive crapola. So breed from the strongest of your birds, the ones that THRIVE in your conditions--the old ones!
Vaccinations like the factory mush meat and swill egger farms do...DON'T WORK! They are losing birds left and right of center...lmbo. They are creating worst MD than ever...in Gail's book she cites there are SIX MD strains...I am betting since 1994, there are more and worst ones! Know of one kind, not sure it has made it up here to the Great White North yet, but maybe, eh?
So...
First off, get a copy of this book (nfi)
-
The Chicken Health Handbook, By Gail Damerow, Copright 1994, ISBN 10 0 88266 611 8 (pbk).
Answers these kind of questions...I keep mine handy for times like these questions.
Get some turkeys or get some turkey litter (dirty as in pooped in). Put that in with your baby chicken chicks and let them eat some turkey plops (dried will do!). Glenn Drowns of Sand Hill Preservation raises his chicks and turks poults together and has NEVER dealt with problems associated with MD in his flock...only by bringing in outside birds would he have an issue. Turkeys harbour a weaker less virile strain of MD and vaccinates the young chickens against MD...kewl eh! Now don't house turkeys with chickens because the turkeys suffer, chickens can have blackhead disease (eating earthworms which are a host of the blackhead!) which does not really harm chickens but KILLS TURKEYS (do an autopsy, if you got bad looking livers in the turks--that be blackhead disease!).
Off my website...
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Disease Resistance
Our animals count on us to keep them safe, healthy, and happy. It may seem harsh, but only the healthiest and fittest animals should procreate. To replicate from unthrifty or non-vigourous stock is to perpetuate ongoing problems. As stated so fittenly in the article "
What Is Marek's Disease?" by K.J. Theodore, "
If your chickens breathe, they've been exposed to Marek's!"
Rather than enslaving ourselves to a vaccination program, we are breeding our poultry for natural resistance against one of the more common chicken diseases, Marek's (some chickens carry a resistance factor "B21").
To read the full article, "
What is Marek's Disease?" go to:
http://www.shagbarkbantams.com/page9.htm
"
The future will bring increasing pressure on the fancier to vaccinate his birds against various diseases prevalent in large commercial flocks. He would be well advised to breed resistant strains by breeding from the survivors, since once a vaccination policy is started it cannot be stopped."
- Page 193; “
Creative Poultry Breeding” by Dr. W.C. Carefoot, M.Sc., Ph. D. – 1st edition 1985, Published by Veronica Mayhew (
[email protected]).
"
I completely agree that bantam flocks should not be vaccinated against Marek's disease. A strain of birds should naturally resist the disease. My own observations strongly suggest that strains of birds can be bred resistant to Marek's disease."
- Page 4-5; "
Observations on Heredity and Disease Control" by Donald Perham, American Bantam Association Quarterly, Summer 1978.
"
MEDICATION..."
"
...The use of medicines including drugs, feed supplements and antibiotics should be governed by a few basic facts:"
"
1. Antibiotic or drugs have no effect on the viruses which cause major diseases such as laryngotracheitis and Marek's disease.
"
2. There are products which will help cure a disease such as coryza but what is gained thereby? The recovered birds will be carriers--a hazard to the next crop of young birds.
"
3. By feeding a commercial feed it is almost impossible to have nutritional deficiencies. Those, however, who think baker's bread and scratch grain better than commercial mash might well have to buy some of the feed supplements."
- Page 5; "
Chicken Diseases" by F.P. Jeffrey, Copyright 2005, Published by the American Bantam Association.
"
VACCINATION..."
"
...Commercial poultrymen have nothing to fear from fanciers because they have the privilege of protecting their birds against as many diseases as they wish."
"
The author makes these recommendations:
"
1. Marek's disease--no. Breed for resistance.
"
2. Leukosis/Sarcoma group--no. Breed for resistance.
"
3. Infectious bronchitis--no. The disease itself is of no consequence.
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4. Laryngotracheitis or pox--yes. If the disease is prevalent in your area or if you show birds in many parts of the country.
"
5. Newcastle disease--no. The mild form of this disease is so widespread that vaccination is not necessary."
- Page 6; "
Chicken Diseases" by F.P. Jeffrey, Copyright 2005, Published by the American Bantam Association.
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So don't get rid of your surviving chooks...make more of the same...if they live at your house, make more!
I have a ton of photos to get thru here peoples...hope I can get round to posting some here...so much fun.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
