Hey yall!! So today I had a pullet die. She wasn't laying yet, but I know it would have been soon. I went to the fill feeders and waterers at 7am. Everything was fine. I went out there around lunch and she was layed out unable to walk. I picked her up without a fuss(very unusual bc they don't like being handled.) and removed her from the flock. I had to make her drink. I went to check on her periodically throughout the day. When my husband came home around 4:30pm she was dead. This was sudden. I'm taking her in the morning to get a necropsy. Just wanted to touch base and let yall know what is going on.
'Deepest condolences. I know how painful it is and how frustrating. Glad that you are having a necropsy done and like others I look forward to hearing the results.
As for the disinfectant. Please forgive me for playing devil's advocate here but I really wonder about the lasting efficiency of disinfectants given the prevelance of Marek's in the general population of birds and in the wild.
True, keeping coops clean is only logical in good poultry stewardship but in the longrun what is to keep enviromental spread and reinfection of the area you just sanitized with either Virkron or Oxine? Whether it's via insects, dander or wild birds, what is to keep the reinfection other than keeping your birds in an airtight coop and indoor run where you have to cover yourself in an inviromental suit, helmet gloves and booties and change those every time you enter the coop? You would need a postitive pressure airlock and birds that are tested and 100% Marek's free. Then all the spray in the world isn't going to keep that one infected fly from getting into your sanitized coop and run and reinfecting your whole flock.
Yeah, Pretty grim and yes, cynical on my part but I've lost a LOT of birds to this disease, including one two weeks ago that I had to put down when I discovered her crop was swollen to the size of a grape furit, hard and she was skin and bones. More than likely a Marek's tumor.
IMHO, veterinary science/medicine needs to get it's fingers out of it's collecive ears and develop a vaccine that is not open ended and will once and for all stop this disease in it's tracks. It has to be made available in quanities that is practical for back yard flock keepers and unlike the current vaccine, not 'almost' work.
They have done it with the human papilloma virus. It's only a matter of time before they do it with other forms of the herpes virus.
Until then...we who have Marek's in our flocks will keep on practicing good stewardship and caring for our flocks to the best of our abilities and in the mean time, dealing with the occasional dead bird.
