Marek’s Disease

[Mrs Wick]

Thank you for your support. My little hen is far too gone to recover. She doesn't talk to me anymore, she looks like she's awaiting death and I feel like I bother her trying to feed her

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Hi again @Mrs Wick. I am very glad to hear back from you. Want to say ive thought of u and your little chick since yesterday. I felt so especially sad for you, because the question u asked obviously showed how much u cared & have tried to save her. Bless your heart of gold for doing all u could. Want to let you know that the reason me and @EggSighted4Life saw and responded to your inquiry is because the thread u asked your question on was linked to another current ongoing thread. (The thread in emergencies forum " five-month old australorp suddenly lame; now another pullet going lame.")
Otherwise, the thread you posted your question on was a bit older, so u might not have received any response. The original poster of the australorp pullet thread (if u havent read it), is very knowledgeable and experienced. She is currently going to great lengths to try and save her pullets, as you have no doubt also done. Sometimes, hard as we fight for them, they just dont make it. I havent had to deal with mareks disease so couldnt answer your questions, as Eggsighted did. But a few questions did cross my mind after seeing your avatar pic yesterday. It looked like your little chick was in a brooder box by herself. Is she your only chicken, or just the only one symptomatic? The reason i ask is because chickens of all ages do quickly become depressed when they are by themselves. I was going to suggest to u that even keeping her near you in your lap/under your shirt, etc when possible would help give her some comfort. Even that is still not the same as being with fellow chicks. I havent dealt with mareks disease, but HAve had hundreds of broody hens raise chicks. And have learned that as much as i enjoy seeing mama hens raise their babies, the chicks need other chicks to thrive more than they need mamas. Which is why artificial incubation is so sucessful. U may already know what i just said, but wanted to say it just in case. I didnt suggest that you start a new thread to ask your questions yesterday, bcause i knew your chicks chances of improvement werent good (understatement), but also knew u might not be ready to hear that yet. Most people choose to humanely euthanize at home due to vet costs being high, but u CAN take her to a vetetinarian if u choose to do so. If u choose/can afford that route, just make sure the vet knows proper euthanasia dosage for a BIRD her weight, since will likely be different than similiar size mammals.
Is this your first (group of) chickens? So many people end up with chickens carrying incurable diseases because they just dont know any better in the beginning. I bought some point-of-lay pullets over 7 years ago that ended up being carriers of MG chronic respiratory disease. I feel like the only reason i didnt possibly end up with other diseases in my flock is that my broody hens soon began hatching so many chicks that i had no need/desire/room to buy any more. I do ocasionally still buy day-old feed store & hatchery-ordered chicks of breeds i want, & slip under the broodies. Day old chicks from the most well-known, largest established hatcheries are by far the safest way to go. Again, i may be telling you things u already know, but saying it just in case, because the info is so important.

 

[sherahart]

Interesting post.. With lots of stuff to digest, as a person who ACTIVELY breeds for resistance to MDv and also think vaccinating is NOT the responsible choice for ME, (one who breeds)..

but inaccurate information regarding DE..

I am in the ANTI DE camp for many reasons! But it is stated ineffective in humid or moist environments.. which as far as I know is everything internally including the lungs and intestines. There are MANY choices in the US to eradicate mites and don't include DE or take weeks to be effective. A top choice for many is a permethrin based horse fly spray. Elector PSP, and even Ivermectin.. depending on parasite species being treated, size of flock, keeper's resources and perspective of course.

Thank you for sharing and sorry you face this. My intent is to support you!...

Some birds can recover from not walking even though not super often. The longer it's been you might want to offer some sort of physical therapy to help build up the muscles they haven't used..

Thank you @EggSighted4Life! I am also anti-DE but did not take time to say I used permethrin spray, Ivermectin, Moxydectin, ear-mite lotion, and baths followed by blow drying, although the unscented cat litter I used in the cage bottom might have contained DE. If so, it would be bound to the clay and much safer than dust. The mites just kept coming back! The way I understand it, the reason DE does not work in 85% or more humidity is not that it doesn't cut the parasites, but that they don't dry out and therefore don't die. Of course, chicken lungs and intestines don't dry out either, and those cuts don't heal in an immune compromised bird like they would in a healthy one.

Sad to say, I overfed my pullet one day when I couldn't stay home with her. When I got back, I found her dead. She had thrown up and choked. She had more meat on her breastbone than when she got sick, and she was even starting to drink formula on her own, but not enough. So I killed her in spite of trying to help her get better. Rather than risk killing her cage-mate who I wasn't sure had Marek's (or just frozen joints from a long cut above her hock), I took her and all her supplies including L-Lysine to a poultry rescuer 2 days ago. The injured pullet had started showing wry-neck symptoms only one day following her friend's death. Lucky for us both, the rescuer had much more experience and a large support network. Her helpers could do more than a few minutes of physical therapy each day. She even offered to treat with Valcyclovir in case of Marek's! I miss both pullets. It's hard to walk through my back porch now. But I'm trying to recover and share what I've learned, mostly the hard way.

 

[valeried]

Bumping thread because I'm a retired Clinical Lab Scientist who learned the hard way about Marek's, but I might be ahead of the curve on recent treatment research. I started studying chicken parasites and diseases when we moved to a farm in 2014. Bad experiences with our first chickens taught me Florida is paradise for parasites and disease, not for chickens or people who care for their livestock. I think Marek's took down chickens I bought before I ever understood what it was. Ditto coccidiosis. I couldn't find pictures of all those little pinwheel-like structures I saw under the microscope. Turns out they were several other stages of the coccidia lifecycle, before the little buggers mature into oocysts. Dr. Gary Butcher, U of F poultry specialist, helped me figure out what was killing so many of my birds. He travels all around the world helping commercial operators solve problems. He also taught me what to look for when doing my own necropsies when the Florida State lab diagnosed Marek's over a year ago after several juveniles died in quick succession in a run that turned mucky after heavy rains. That wasn't my first scare or chicken fatality, but before I was never sure. Since then, I've been looking harder for info on symptoms and treatments.

I found a study of several natural substances tested by Chinese scientists: Screening compounds of Chinese medicinal herbs anti-Marek's disease virus

"Results: Antiviral assay showed dipotassium glycyrrhizinate (DG) and sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate (STS) exhibited significantly inhibitory activity against MDV in a dose-dependent manner. EC50 of DG and STS were 893.5 ± 36.99 µg/mL and 54.82 ± 2.99 µg/mL, and selective index (SI) were >3.36 and >9.12, respectively. Time of addition experiment and virucidal assay demonstrated DG inhibited viral replication in the full replication cycle and inactivated MDV particles in non-time-dependent manner, but STS interfered with the early stage of MDV replication and inactivated MDV particles in a time-dependent manner. Moreover, both DG and STS promoted apoptosis of cells infected by MDV.

Discussion and conclusion: DG and STS have great potential for developing new anti-MDV drugs for clinic application."

Note that the study used Chinese, not American or European licorice root. American glycyrrhiza glabra and European are different species from Chinese glycyrrhiza uralensis. The Chinese species does not have near as much coumadin, a blood thinner dangerous to use on a sick chicken very likely to have coccidiosis, which can cause death by multiple tiny hemorrhages. Another research study confirmed that vitamin K can prevent that, but why cause more problems using the wrong species?
Sad to say, I could not find glyccyrrhiza uralensis powder or extract the first time I shopped on Amazon. I just received some ground root of the correct species last week and started adding it to formula for one pullet who won't eat and food of the one who will eat. Too early to tell if it will work. STS alone (Dan Shen) did not save my last few pullets treated.

I am still reading another Chinese study:
Antiviral effect of baicalin on Marek's disease virus in CEF cells

Part of the abstract:
Background: Baicalin, the main metabolic component of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, has various pharmacological properties including anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-apoptotic, anti-bactericidal and anti-viral. The purpose of this study was to investigate the anti-Marek's disease virus (MDV) activities of baicalin in CEF cells.

Results: Here, we showed that baicalin could inhibit viral mRNA, protein levels and overall plaque formation in a time-dependent manner. We also found that baicalin could consistently inhibit MDV replication and directly affect the virus infectivity. Moreover, baicalin treatment has no effect on expression level of antiviral cytokine and inflammatory cytokines in MDV infected CEFs.

Conclusions: These results demonstrate that baicalin could be a potential drug against MDV infection.

Given other research I've read about vaccination pressure leading to very virulent forms developing and the fact that our neighbors never vaccinate, I could not vaccinate in good conscience. Instead I try to breed resistant birds, which makes it especially important never to breed siblings or to line breed. Yes, there's more research indicating both result in weak immune systems, decreased intelligence, etc. Early this year, Dr. Butcher said the next break in virulence is expected within 5 years, so I am too busy to come back here often. It's not just chickens, but that's how I spend most of my time. We haven't even finished clearing and planting all our land due to my chicken addiction, but I hope others will help find promising research, test it, and report the results.

I had to bring both my pullets into my back porch when I discovered mites eating them alive. Just eradicating those parasites without using DE (because it cuts intestines and lungs already compromised by secondary infections) has taken several weeks. If some other crazy chicken person lived nearby (Crestview, FL) , I would happily exchange fecal exams for feeding and other care chores. And maybe I could find the right substance or combination to try. I am also starting Cranberry extract capsules after reading the Japan cure. Will try to get shrimp heads and shells soon. Already use virgin coconut oil. For coccidiosis, I use diclazuril. Yep, FDA approved for chickens and nobody sells here. I ordered from China before Covid turned up, ordered more since.

Last year, I used St. John's Wort capsules (not the ridiculously diluted homeopathic pills), Doxycycline (currently being studied for human breast cancer) and nano-silver (there's more research on how that works better with antibiotics than alone). My hen who went down with ALV (I think) ate well from June to late November. She finally stopped eating the week before Thanksgiving and died 2 days prior. I felt bad that I couldn't spend time with her because of company, and I think that's why she gave up. One of my first lessons on how social chickens are came when a hen with wet pox refused to eat after 2 weeks of isolation. I put her back with the flock, and she ran and dived into the feed dish. So now I try to put a buddy with sick ones who are out of the flock more than a few days or at least put them where they can hear the others.

I will try to stop back in a couple weeks and see if anyone found something else to try.

Very interesting - Looks like my birds have Marek's and I am devastated. Have to treat for a co infection of MG but am going to try some things!

 

[sherahart]

Very interesting - Looks like my birds have Marek's and I am devastated. Have to treat for a co infection of MG but am going to try some things!

Sorry. I forgot to come back and say that a local chicken rescuer uses human antiviral meds. I do not know how well they work, but it's worth checking into.