You have a good chance at being ok without a Marek‘s vaccination, at least for now. Still the virus can be brought in on your shoes or the shoes and clothes of visitors, from wild birds, on the wind from neighboring infected flocks… so there’s bo guarantee. Vaccinating for Marek‘s will not introduce Marek‘s disease to your flock. I don’t know why Ideal writes this.
Like most things in life, there is no absolute certainty and we all kind of muddle through and do the best we can according to our own judgement. I have had vaccinated birds and unvaccinated birds. I have lost a lot of chickens over the years to all kinds of issues. Somebody said „where there’s livestock, there’s dead stock“. There’s only so much we can do. But I definitely feel worse losing animals to issues that I could have prevented. I lost two young pullets to Marek‘s this year, because they were unvaccinated. There was nothing I could do for them and it was so sad.
So, unless you are stellar at keeping up biosecurity, I would get vaccinated birds, there is no downside to it, if you have the option. If you have your heart set on buying from a breeder that doesn’t offer vaccines, that’s a different issue. It might be worth it to you to try.
