Mareks experience needed. prelim results pg 9

[seminolewind]

Kelar, thanks for your reply. Aside from the roo 2 years ago that was paralyzed, I've had numerous hatches, from bought eggs and my own and none of the chicks had shown paralysis or staggering and died. Until the 3 recently. And there's been no outside chickens added between the 40 chicks I hatched last year and the ones now. So I never really thought of Marek's because it doesn't seem like it was brought in.

So with that roo from 2 years ago, the vet had suggested EEE because he didn't see any tumors. I can understand that, but his symptoms were classic Marek's like from a book.


The rest with the wasting away and dying, the symptoms fit with Aspergillosis. I don't know if it could be one of Marek's faces. I have this giant vet text book, and from the info there, Marek's symptoms can be anything from zippo, wasting away, to symptoms of paralysis and/or tumors on the inside. That covers alot.

I was going to start vaccinating last year, but the company that got my order and payment 3 weeks prior to a hatch never sent the vaccine, would not answer my emails or phone calls, so Paypal got my money back.

Question: Can Marek's be brought in by wild birds, like crows?

Can one live chick be brought into a flock and cause 9 chicks or chickens to die in a period of 2 years within 40 chickens, and another 40 hatched?

Can the paralysis/gasp but good appetite deaths be from the same illness as the ones that wasted away and died , each one wasting over a period of months? Could one illness like Marek's cause both ?

I did a necropsy (amature) of the chick yesterday who wasted and died, and had been treated by coccidiosis. The esphagus was clean. The crop had food in it. The proventiculus -the food was a bit off color and bad odor. The gizzard had food in it. The intestines did not appear to have anything notable. The organs looked normal. The trachea was clean and clear. The lungs did not look odd, but can't be discounted. No tumors or spots anywhere. EXCEPT there was this inner skin in the area of the lungs, the inside of the outer skin wall. I took a picture of that, if you want, I can post it. Maybe I should have permission from Krista, since it's her post? Let me know.

 

[kelar]

Ok - I'll try to share what I know, but part of the problem is that there is really very little information available to backyard poultry owners. The research that has been done is oriented toward the commercial industry and doesn't help us a lot.

Your first roo that died most likely had Mareks. From what I've read, Encephalitis (clinical signs) is only seen in birds less than 4 weeks old. It's certainly a differential diagnosis in birds that are showing marek's like symtoms, but are extremely young. I've had necropsy done on a bird that died of Mareks and did not have tumors. On gross, she presumed he died of kidney failure due to condition of the kidneys. I knew his kidneys were failing, but he was also going blind and I requested histo to try and discover the cause of the blindness. The cells examined on histo were full of cancer from a very slow growing type of mareks. I don't know if he would have developed tumors eventually had he lived long enough, but the diagnosis would have been missed entirely without the histo. I don't know off hand how many types of Mareks there are, but apparently there are a number of different types and they manifest in different ways, so yes, it's possible all your birds died from Mareks in spite of the different symptoms.

Mareks can be carried in by wild birds. It can also blow in from neighboring properties, come in on car tires, shoes, equipment, etc. etc. It is literally everywhere and I've been told that once it's on your property, it's there to stay even after years. When we moved to our property, we did not have any chickens and we were here around 6 years before we had any. The first birds were hatchery chicks (EEs) who were raised in the house as chicks and then moved out to a brand new chicken house and run when they were about 12 weeks old. Three weeks or so later, several of them came down with Mareks. Where did it come from? No idea So the one chicken you brought in may or may not have been the carrier of the virus - the truth is, you will never know.

I don't know if aspergillosis is really very common in backyard flocks. I don't believe I've ever had it - I suppose it's an outside possibility, but it would depend on conditions in your particular area and flock. I've considered it a couple of times as a possiblity, but threw it out for one reason or another.

A pic of lungs would not mean anything to me, but there may be others on here that could help with that. I know there are a number of posters that do their own necropsy, so maybe a plea in that direction with some pics would help. It's possible that this most recent chick sustained internal damage from the cocci and succumbed from that. The foul odor you describe makes me think something was not working correctly with the digestive system even though the chick was eating.

 

[seminolewind]

The odor was bad. It took scrubbing with pure clorox 3 times, and it was still there on my hands. I then used Clorox toilet bowl cleaner, then after 4 hours it finally went away.It did not really resemble bad chicken, but it did resemble, somewhat, formaldehyde. Resemble slightly.

There was absolutely no damage or sign of coccidiosis throughout the whole excretory or gastric system.

WARNING Next post graphic picture

 

[seminolewind]

Here's some INTERNAL side of external skin that I question. I believe that the skin was above where the wings join. This was an 11 week old chick displaying wasting and death that came from a hatch with 3 chicks who displayed paralysis, staggering, falling, and a gasp every 5 seconds in addition to breathing.

 

[seminolewind]

important post

 

[kelar]

I wish someone with necropsy experience would weigh in - that does not look normal, do you think it's from subcutaneous hemorrhage? Wish I knew more about the insides of chickens

 

[klf73]

I don't know what a "normal" bird looks like

. I found my local ag ext. They are going to have a box ready for me later today so I will go pick it up.

 

[ReikiStar]

Krista, I'm so so sorry Mareks has hit your lovely flock. We were rammed through a crash course of Mareks when we rescued some hens and one of them had it. We were so ignorant about it, just thought she was under weight from the stress of where she was kept. We thought her neck being tucked in was just her way of showing she was scared because she would extend it to eat. It took about 3 weeks for her to start staggering, then wing paralysis, eventually both her legs were straight out (not the split) and she could only walk backwards to the point of flipping herself over -- we ended up hand feeding her for 3 weeks until we took her to the vet to let her go. She came with 2 other hens...mercifully, they are fine. We had one house chicken at the time and she has since started living with the other two...she's fine. Between the vet who put our Mareks bird down and the state university vet, Mareks is around but they said only if you have numbers of birds like a commercial facility do you have to worry about it staying around for years. They said the herpes virus isn't that resilient so it will die off after some weeks. At the time we were raising chicks in the house, we had to bring the Mareks bird into the house because it was too cold outside. Our heating system circulates the air in the house so I asked about our chicks. The vets said it must have been a weak strain of Mareks and oddly enough, we probably did the chicks some good by exposing them in small small amounts (note: some of the chicks had been vaccinated and some had not). The one good thing about Mareks is they can develop immunity. It's believed the 3 adult hens have it out right and we're bringing up our chicks to gain "age developed" immunity. If you can keep the chicks clean until they are 5 months old, they should have immunity to it. That means keeping the chicks away from adults birds until they're 5 months old. Adult birds who catch Mareks, either were never vaccinated (which only prevents the tumors from forming but doesn't protect them from catching the virus) or never developed an immunity and went through stress which lowered it's immune system. Herpes is an opportunistic virus, so minimizing stress is another piece of the "keep Mareks away" puzzle.

Raising chicks with turkey poults is another way to develop immunity as turkeys have a different type of Mareks virus that chickens don't catch, but their immune systems can become familiar with to fight off the chicken version.

There are many people who've had Mareks on their farm who went on to be able to have other chickens who remain healthy. I'm sorry it's too late for some of your birds, but there is hope for the others.

Just wanted to try to give you a glimmer of hope. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, same for chickens.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
They look like the flip side of feather follicles-but why in two 1.5 inch areas? I've never seen a chicken with those enlarged follicles on the inside of the skin. I'm afraid of this being the follicular attack of Marek's, but I only find pictures of the outside skin.

My last roo is looking normal after a week of staggering/loss of balance. Go figure. I think I'll leave him in solitary confinement for now.

 

[seminolewind]

Well, this morning my 11 week old roo who , a week ago, started the gasp and staggered and couldn't stand up, today, he is perfectly normal. No gasping, legs are working fine. He's calmed down as well, he was a basket case before.

So what do I do with him?
I guess I'll have to read up more on this immunity/carrier/spreader thing.