Maraks....??

[Sussex19]

@Sussex19 sorry you are having problems. There is a saying that if you think you have Marek's disease in your flock, you probably do. It's just that prevalent all over the world.

Your hen's eye is curious and definitely 'funky' looking. But is it MD? I'm in agreement with @Eggcessive, not sure but....and I say but because the pupil looks really odd to me. The colored part of the eye, the iris on a bird with Marek's is usually a nasty, green/gray looking. Now the question is why is your hen's still brick brown while the pupil looks suspicious.

I like to use this picture as a demo. I've had three birds with ocular Mareks and all looked like the eye on the right. The eye on the left is a normal chicken's eye. My birds presented with tightly constricted pupils and the green/gray irises.

Your hen's pupil looks irregular which is a sign of Marek's but it could also mean that there is a deep infection going on in the eye that is related to Marek's disease. The term is Iritis. Time will tell.

The fact that you have had roosters lose the use of their legs and recover is suspicious of MD. Can happen. But even if you do have Marek's in your flock not all of your birds will die. Those showing symptoms, yes, you will lose those birds but birds that are resistant will survive. Unfortunately, all will be carriers if that is the case.

Thank you very much for the detailed reply!
So basally just wait and see if it gets worse, I guess. It certainly doesn't look as bad as the one in the photo, so I dunno.

My best advice is to keep an 'eye' on that eye and see what happens. If the color changes then that is pretty much a firm diagnosis of MD. Or if she loses weight, becomes lethargic, etc. or develops new symptoms.

Sounds good, her weight is a bit lower in the moment, because up until recently she was brooding chicks but I think it feels around where it should be.
She is still doing else that she should, laying, eating, drinking, going around with the flock.
What is the age that MD symptoms usually strike? Her chicks are around 5 weeks old now.
In your article you mention Sussex and Orpingtons are particularly vulnerable, and thats what most of mine are

 

[microchick]

If they are skilled at necropsies they could dissect into the thigh muscle and find the sciatic nerve. In a Marek's positive bird the nerve will be enlarged and swollen. They might also look for visceral tumors that are common in Marek's disease survivors.

I lost maybe one bird to the initial infection at 9 weeks of age. The rest of my birds all survived only to succumb to the disease at around 18 months of age. Some died of neurological symptoms, seizures etc. The rest to tumors. I lost one beautiful rooster to tumors in his throat that seemed to appear over night. I noticed he was losing weight. When I checked him he had three large tumors under his wattles. Marek's is just a nasty nasty disease and I hate it with a passion.

 

[Sussex19]

If they are skilled at necropsies they could dissect into the thigh muscle and find the sciatic nerve. In a Marek's positive bird the nerve will be enlarged and swollen. They might also look for visceral tumors that are common in Marek's disease survivors.

I don't think they were thinking of doing a necropsy, but it was my dad who talked to them.

I lost maybe one bird to the initial infection at 9 weeks of age. The rest of my birds all survived only to succumb to the disease at around 18 months of age.

So it can hang around for quite a long time, before one gets symptoms...

 

[microchick]

Thank you very much for the detailed reply!
So basally just wait and see if it gets worse, I guess. It certainly doesn't look as bad as the one in the photo, so I dunno.

Sounds good, her weight is a bit lower in the moment, because up until recently she was brooding chicks but I think it feels around where it should be.
She is still doing else that she should, laying, eating, drinking, going around with the flock.
What is the age that MD symptoms usually strike? Her chicks are around 5 weeks old now.
In your article you mention Sussex and Orpingtons are particularly vulnerable, and thats what most of mine are

I'm sorry. Seriously. It really sux to deal with Marek's.

I lost a beautiful speckled Sussex hen when she was just 2 years old. She was one of my longest survivors but she had crop problems her whole life which is what killed her. Her crop kept impacting. I would give her docusate and monostat and get it settled down again and within days she would be plugged up solid. I think she eventually developed tumors in her crop. There are birds that are genetically resistant to MD. I added Egyptian Fayoumis to my flock and so far so good! I hatched 6 second generation birds this past spring and all are healthy.

Marek's generally hits young birds at 9 weeks once their immunity from the 'egg' wears off. I lost one at 9 weeks to classic scissor paralysis of MD. It was very painful to watch and even more painful to have to euthanize the baby. If resistant they will not develop symptoms. If not, they can either develop symptoms and die or like my bird did, or they can survive to die at a later date from secondary neurological or cancer development.

 

[microchick]

I don't think they were thinking of doing a necropsy, but it was my dad who talked to them.

So it can hang around for quite a long time, before one gets symptoms...

This is the thing with Marek's. As I wrote in my article. It's just everywhere. There is the train of thought that says that resistance is passed on to chicks by the mother in the egg. But non resistant chicks exposed to the dense dander of their mother's feathers are immediately exposed upon hatching.

For me the solution was bringing in resistant birds from neighboring flocks and adding both vaccinated and genetically resistant birds like Fayoumis to my flock.

 

[coach723]

If you do a search online for occular Marek's and then select images, you will get some good pictures. There are different ways the eye can possibly look. The gray eye is often mentioned as one of the common symptoms. My birds have instead mostly presented with pinched and odd shaped pupils, a couple of pictures below from mine. I usually see a grayed ring around the actual pupil and there are changes to the iris, but not the total gray out. Without labs, it's hard to say for sure. A cloudy eye could have other causes, injury, bacterial infection, etc.

 

[microchick]

Wow, @coach723 Your birds' eyes presented very differently from the way mine did.

Mind had the constricted pupil and the icky green gray Iris. I have a picture of the first bird that I had that OMD and for the life of me I can't find it right now. Sassy developed OMD at a year of age and while she was brooding a dozen eggs for me. My birds also developed a lot of swelling in the eyes.

When my husband checked their eyes for me and gave me the diagnosis of Iritis he told me that basically it was ocular herpes and we all know that Marek's is an avian herpes infection. He also told me it was very painful. My hens and one rooster that developed it never went out in the direct sun. They would stay in the coop or come out and stand in shaded areas so I have no doubt that the bright sun was causing them pain along with the herpes in their eyes.

They all progressed and developed neuro problems making me wonder if the disease didn't invade their brains causing strokes and paralysis along with seizures.

Have I mentioned that I REALLY HATE THIS DISEASE?

 

[coach723]

Yes, I hate it too! I've seen some pictures on line that look like mine, seems maybe less common? Not sure. Seems differing strains and individual birds immune systems can make things different. In my case I don't tend to lose young chicks, at least so far. Mine usually start to show symptoms around 6ish months or so, sometimes later. So some of my cockerels are gone before they have a chance to show symptoms. My last years hatch I kept two boys, one started at just before 6 months and progressed pretty fast, was getting pretty blind so I culled him. Most of my others have progressed pretty slowly. He was my first choice to keep, so that was a bummer. The other still is symptom free, and so far (knocking hard on wood) none of the girls from that hatch show symptoms. The hatch before that one hen has occular symptoms. I have 10-11 week olds out now that so far are fine. It feels like russian roulette sometimes and I try not to form preferences early anymore (pretty hard when you are human!) since I know that what I want may not be. If I'm considering keeping any boys I try to give them as long as I possibly can, to see if any start to show symptoms. It's just a challenge, not knowing who, or when, it might hit. I need to buy some chicks from outside to avoid any genetic issues from inbreeding, and I'm very worried about how many of them might be OK in the long run. This will be my first outside purchase in a while, planning for coming spring, so we'll see how it goes and whether I'm willing to try it again. Because my strain seems to be fairly mild in the grand scheme, I've chosen not to bring in immunized birds due to concerns that it might allow my strain to become worse. I'd rather lose a few birds here and there than lose a bunch to a worse strain because the affected ones didn't die off. That may be faulty logic, but how I'm going for now.

 

[microchick]

I lost all of my roosters, Buff Orpingtons and Welsummers. None lived to be 2 years old. Most started to show symptoms at 12-18 months and went rapidly down hill. I think even today that was the reason I couldn't successfully breed resistant birds from my Buff Os. The Vet at MIZZOU's Veterinary College lab told me that to successfully breed resistant birds you needed to hatch eggs from 3-4 year birds. I could never get roosters to live that long.

Have you considered getting eggs from other local breeders within a 5 mile range of you and hatching them? That's what I did. The local birds were resistant. I lost two birds out of maybe 30 to MD so it was IMHO a successful experiment.

Bringing in vaccinated birds is a crap shoot. I wondered the same thing but in for a penny in for a pound. I brought in vaccinated OEGBs and they have thrived. I think I'm working on my 4th generation of birds from my original flock of 8. No MD deaths so far. Like you I knock on wood HARD.

 

[Eggcessive]

Well, I would not bring the chicken in to the vet’s just for their opinion. There is testing available, but it may just not be well known there or feasible due to expense and shipping. But a necropsy could eventually be performed by them if the chicken does, and they may know what to look for.