Mareks experience needed. prelim results pg 9

[NewToFarming]

Question for you guys...I had a young pullet in the beginning of the year that had sudden leg paralysis. I had a necropsy done and it did not mention Mareks. Would Mareks always be identified if thats what it is? I now have another youngster with leg weakness. Still walking but not the greatest. This has been progressing over the past month so it is a bit different than the first pullet. The weird thing is these 2 youngster are both a leghorn/silkie mix.

 

[klf73]

I am copying an email I received. I hope the sender doesn't mind, I have deleted identifying info so I do not disrespect the sender. I think this is valuable info and echoes the info Jean(pips&peeps, except she recommends vaccines, especially if you exhibit birds, and I agree 100%) shared with me about how to deal with this. This is such a supportive community and I hope the info that everyone shares can help save/preserve someone elses flock.

I did obtain new birds....I have been questioned about it. I have these birds completely separate from everything else and since they are from Greenfire they should be vaccinated agains Mareks, I will confirm and if not I will vaccinate myself. We are taking this day by day and figuring it out as we go. We had big plans for this year and don't want to quit now, I still have more birds coming from Greenfire so they will be housed with these Isbars we just got. We are going with the approach that is mentioned in the following e-mail, we are going to breed for resistance but at the same time we are vaccinating. We will have a sterile hatch outbuilding if we decide to hatch chicks. I never intended on selling chicks so that is not a concern of mine. If I decide to sell eggs then I also don't need to worry about it, since it does not transfer.

enough of my babbling

here is the e-mail - with my statement added in bold

"I am a breeder of exhibition (insert breed

) for 19 years .
I had a significant problem with Mareks 17 years ago ,I tried vacination and still had the problem.
I made contact with Intervet the vacine manufacture who came and did a field trial by taking blood samples.
The conclusions were that the vaccine had been correctly administerd ,however the chicks still caught the virus from the dust and feather dander before the vaccine had a chance to do its job.

Which is how my vet suspects my birds caught it

The recommendation is to hatch and rear all chicks in virgin premises where no parent birds have ever been.
This I did without vaccination ,You then need to keep them away from parent birds for at least 12 weeks.You will still lose the odd bird ,however over the years I have continued with this prcedure and it has worked.
Also you must not use or transfer any equipment from parent bird housing.
Over a period of years you wil buildup immunity ,however still carry out the same process to this day.
Another factor is you must not subject the birds to any stress and keep high levels of vitamin C .
The disease in my case always manivested itself at maturity of the birds with pullets more susceptable than cockerels.
This year l have rised 60 plus chicks with the first hatched on the 2nd March 2011.
With no losses at this point
Best wishes "


what I find extremely interesting is I had 21 orpingtons (victims, not the starters), I would have guessed I had an equal pullet/cockeral ratio. I now have 15 left, 4 are definite pullets and 1 other is possibly a pullet(new to the orps

) . So now I have at least 10 cockerals that can't leave my property. I need to decide which to keep as possibles because these boys eat so much food. I find it interesting that pullets/hens are so sensitive. Shipped hatching eggs seem more delicate(hence high cockeral ratio), the pullets are more susceptible to disease, and they are so much more sensitive to trauma. We have really whacked some cockerals in the past and they keep coming....a hen got bumped by another bird and died from the head trauma....just interesting observations to me

 

[leadwolf1]

I have been following this thread with great interest....

Right now, I have a 9 week old silkie that is showing some strange signs. I saw one of the older chickens, they are 13 weeks, peck her/him on the head. That's when I first noticed the strange head tick. I didn't think much of it at the time, I figured I might do the same if a beak that size, in comparison, pecked me on the head. However, wehn I went up later, the chick was still doing it. I brought her into the house, it's extremely hot out right now. Cooled her off with wet papertowels and placed her in her old brooder with food and electrolytes in her water. I gave her a couple drops of poly vi sol. She eats and drinks and poops fine. But, the tick continues but is no worse. Should I be more concerned? I probably should have posted a new thread but since this one is dealing with my fear, I'm hoping I can get some expert help.

Heat, head trauma or worse? Any thoughts, suggestions.

So sorry for all the trauma you are going through.

 

[klf73]

I wanted to note something else. STUFF HAPPENS, bad stuff at times. I know the first thing that people go looking for is a disease, which is good, but not everything is a disease. I had a genetic issue with a hen, everyone told me infectious bronchitis, had me extremely worried. I contacted the AG school and she narrowed it down for me and put me at ease.

You need to take into account all the things that are asked in the emergencies section.
1. Have you added any new birds?
2. How long has this been going on, is it ongoing?
3. Chickens do get allergies, but not colds. They get injuries to their legs, check obvious signs first....splinter, foriegn object possibly causing discomfort. I chicks check for slipped tendon.

I think the most important thing is DO ANY OTHER BIRDS EXHIBIT SYMPTOMS? This right here will tell you if it is a disease/virus. Most will have other birds that show signs within a couple of days. Mine took a week for the second bird to have a problem. Sometimes I go 2 weeks without a problem, then someone else shows signs.

I had my bator going with eggs, which is why I am still having issues, I have a lot of chicks which I wasn't going to keep(some weren't on purpose, hens went broody then abandoned nest at the end after on a few hatched

).

I did hatch some birds for a local person BUT....I was clean, didn't go near the other birds at all when I went to remove them from the incubator and they went straight out the door(I am OCD about cleanliness and disease/virus). The rest will stay here since they were probably exposed. My ignorance on the dynamics of this virus is what led to my other chicks being exposed. If it were to be an IB or such I would have been fine because I had researched those diseases..."properly" quarantined etc...

 

[klf73]

Quote:
honestly, my first thought is head trauma. the silkies have open skulls, peck to the head could cause swelling, hence ongoing problem. I would search for treatment for that first and foremost, especially since you saw another bird peck at it, it probably wasn't an isolated incident. I know there is supportive treatment for this in silkies, I think it is an injectable though. I would try to search for you but it is getting HOT here and I need to get my a/c's in today....

 

[leadwolf1]

Thanks! I will go searching

 

[fowlman01]

Mareks is pretty common. Vaccinating does not always protect a bird. Mareks has many symptoms...the most obvious and most common is lameness and "going light".
Like many of you I had a severe problem, but over the years have found that: there is no way to protect your birds from exposure to the virus, so you have to deal with it through acquired resistance to the virus. The virus is everywhere, as it is airborne. In most of my breeds I did that with selective breeding. I only bred from birds over a year old. Birds over a year can get Mareks, but it is far less likely. Anyone who has raised birds for any length of time will tell you that they can have two breeds together and one will get Mareks and the other won't. There is only one reason I can think of that this happens. One breed/strain has become resistant to the problem.
One breed I had (Silkies) was so bad that I got a new strain that had far less mortality. It took a few years but I haven't vaccinated for Mareks in 40 years. Vaccinating is a way to go though, I just got tired of birds still getting it and most of all I got tired of sticking my thumb with a needle. Baby chicks are hard to vaccinate. Birds from my flock just about have to be hit by a car to die these days. They are very disease resistant......at least to anything here so far. I live in an area where millions of chickens were raised, so I have just about all the common problems here.

I show my birds, so they are exposed to all kinds of things, but I don't have problems. At this point I don't medicate for anything. In the rare cases when I think something is going on, I cull the bird immediately. You can medicate and that usually helps a lot, but then you are always fighting whatever problem you have. Cocci is another huge problem that is misdiagnosed and is sometimes thought to be mareks. That can also be dealt with by breeding for resistance and also by challenging young birds with it early on under your terms, not the diseases terms. In other words you expose the chicks to it in small doses so that the chick can develop it's own resistance. I can tell you from years of experience that it is very, very difficult for labs to tell you what is wrong with a chicken unless they received several live specimens to test.Even then, they are not positive. Most vets know very little to nothing about chickens.

This has worked for me, but it takes some time. The rewards are huge though.

Walt

 

[klf73]

results are in...well, sort of

I got an email. The lab said they are getting a second opinion. They said it is either Mareks or leukosis virus(which apparently look similar on the slides

) ....now to google leukosis

eta-well, I am absolutely positive it is not leukosis, the symptoms aren't the same....at all...

also, the secondary bird I sent (the orp) was only mildly affected? but the original bird (sent to the lab) was a huge mess inside

. You have to remember my son tried to nurse that one and it was (as I see now) suffering longer. We culled the secondary bird when it couldn't walk after only a few days. The first was alive for at least 3 weeks(+/-) after paralysis....

I am now absolutely positive it is Mareks....either way the birds need to be culled (at least the ones I was not keeping) as I can't even give them for meat as they won't really pack on weight by the time they get to a size to be butchered.... this sucks

.
I will continue with my plan to vaccinate and cull at first sign of illness...

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
I'm not sure what you read about leukosis, but usually the symptoms are same/similar to Mareks. Mareks however, is the most common of the two. You have to vaccinate for Mareks as the chicks come out of the incubator or you have no hope of the vaccine working. It does not work on all the chicks even when done correctly.

With the lab asking for a second opinion you can already see that even vets and labs have a very difficult time determining what kills a chicken. They need at least five live birds to even come close unless the insides are as you say "a huge mess". My advice is to not back yourself into a corner by being "positive" about what you are seeing when even a lab can't be positive. I think you have Mareks, but I am 3000 miles or so from your place, so I don't really know. It just sounds like it probably is. Cocci is also very common though, but usually does not cause lameness....eating greens that have spoiled will cause lameness however....especially bad lettuce. (salmonella). A bird with salmonella acts very much like a bird with Markes that is showing the lameness. Salmonella is more often associated with "limber neck" ...when the bird cannot hold the head up.

Walt

Walt

 

[klf73]

when I looked up leukosis it didn't have the "drunken walk" or the "splits" that most of the affected birds have/had...although a lot of the other symptoms a the same/similar this seemed more exclusive to Mareks

it is also the most likely since the birds that brought this here had mareks on the property within the last year