I meant to write this post years ago and time passed and I never did. I am writing it to hopefully save a chickens life because now I have a barnyard mix chicken that is in the first stages of this.
I will try to give you the Cliffnotes version.
A few years ago, I had a silkie I noticed was just laying in the corner of run just watching the other chickens and not being active. Upon further notice, it looked like she had an injured leg. I thought she must have fallen out of the hen house.
Then the next day, same thing just staying in the corner of the run. Each day it got worse, so I brought her to the house. She had begun turning her head backwards, turning upside down, and her legs were split one up front and one in the back.
I thought does she have wry neck, so I treated her for that with no results. I gave her antibiotics from TSC (can’t remember which ones but seemed like they were for respiratory infection).
She could not sit up to eat, so I took vacation leave from work every day to take care of her. After days of taking vacation leave, I finally realized I cannot keep taking off work to take care of her and she was getting worse.
I finally came to the conclusion she had Marek’s Disease (she had all the symptoms), and I needed to take her to the vet (regular cat/dog vet that also does birds) to have her put down. So I took her to have her put down. The vet said, ‘you know what, before we put her down, let’s try this first.” He said if I promised she was a pet (our chickens are our pets) and if we weren’t eating the eggs (we weren’t), he would prescribe Baytril to see if that made her well. I told him I’d already tried antibiotics and they didn’t work for this. He said, ‘let’s try it.’ I knew it wouldn’t work because she was in really bad shape and I knew there was not a cure for Marek's disease.
ON THE FIFTH DAY OF BAYTRIL SHE WAS GOOD AS NEW like nothing had ever happened!! It was an inner ear infection and NOT Marek’s Disease!!!
Now I order Baytril online from a bird store and keep it for whenever the chickens have a respiratory infection or anything that looks like Wry Neck, inner ear infection, or Marek’s Disease.
If you think your chicken might have Marek’s Disease, rethink it, don’t put them down until you check it out …. it might just be an inner ear infection.
I will try to give you the Cliffnotes version.
A few years ago, I had a silkie I noticed was just laying in the corner of run just watching the other chickens and not being active. Upon further notice, it looked like she had an injured leg. I thought she must have fallen out of the hen house.
Then the next day, same thing just staying in the corner of the run. Each day it got worse, so I brought her to the house. She had begun turning her head backwards, turning upside down, and her legs were split one up front and one in the back.
I thought does she have wry neck, so I treated her for that with no results. I gave her antibiotics from TSC (can’t remember which ones but seemed like they were for respiratory infection).
She could not sit up to eat, so I took vacation leave from work every day to take care of her. After days of taking vacation leave, I finally realized I cannot keep taking off work to take care of her and she was getting worse.
I finally came to the conclusion she had Marek’s Disease (she had all the symptoms), and I needed to take her to the vet (regular cat/dog vet that also does birds) to have her put down. So I took her to have her put down. The vet said, ‘you know what, before we put her down, let’s try this first.” He said if I promised she was a pet (our chickens are our pets) and if we weren’t eating the eggs (we weren’t), he would prescribe Baytril to see if that made her well. I told him I’d already tried antibiotics and they didn’t work for this. He said, ‘let’s try it.’ I knew it wouldn’t work because she was in really bad shape and I knew there was not a cure for Marek's disease.
ON THE FIFTH DAY OF BAYTRIL SHE WAS GOOD AS NEW like nothing had ever happened!! It was an inner ear infection and NOT Marek’s Disease!!!
Now I order Baytril online from a bird store and keep it for whenever the chickens have a respiratory infection or anything that looks like Wry Neck, inner ear infection, or Marek’s Disease.
If you think your chicken might have Marek’s Disease, rethink it, don’t put them down until you check it out …. it might just be an inner ear infection.
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