Mareks or something else?

[Callieserino]

After spending the day at the vet and ruling out lead and zinc poisoning, the vet seems to think our girl Goldie has Mareks. Anyone with experience and good outcomes with Mareks? She is 5.5 months old and was vaccinated.

 

[azygous]

It would help to know what her symptoms are. There is a chance she has Marek's in spite of being vaccinated. There are strains that the vax doesn't cover.

However, there are other diseases that are similar to Marek's. I have a pullet that came down with something similar that paralyzed her two months ago. I've been treating her ever since, and she's recovering and walking now. You are welcome to join us over at that thread and we can compare your case with mine. Others have chimed in with their own cases and it's helped everyone. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...update-now-another-pullet-going-lame.1432738/

 

[Callieserino]

Yes I’m sorry... symptoms would definitely help!!! She initially 4 days ago was too weak to fly up to the roost, the following day was too weak to walk up the ramp into the coop at night. I found her the following morning in the corner of the coop on her bum. She wasn’t able to stand herself up. I brought her in and she wasn’t able to support herself to walk or sit upright. She kept tipping over. She was eating and drinking up until this morning, less interested in food today but drinking water with vitamins. She is starting to lean to one side with her legs sticking out one side.

 

[feather13]

Sorry about your Goldie

We have Mareks in our flock and got Mareks and Coccidiosis vaccinated day-old chicks this summer (neither vaccine guarantees your flock will be virus and disease-free). One of our chicks had the same symptoms as you're describing and I was ready to euthanize her. But a BYC member suggested she might have Coccidiosis, so we isolated and treated her. Now, nine months later she's totally healthy.

If she has Marek's, there's no good outcome. But as @azygous noted, there are other reasons your Goldie may be behaving like this that are treatable.

 

[azygous]

Those are very similar symptoms to my pullet's. Go read the thread. I just updated it. My pullet is getting vitamin E and selenium and vitamin B 1, 6, and 12 and a 81 grain aspirin daily for any nerve pain. We've all concluded she has a myelin sheath stripping disorder. The B-1 and 6 both restore nerve connections. The B-12 helps strengthen the legs.

This might be something you would want to consider trying. In the beginning, when she first was stricken, I treated her with three different antibiotics. Whether or not that helped is anyone's guess. Another pullet before her had the same thing, and I didn't treat with antibiotics, and I lost her.

It's been two months, and several times I thought the only thing left was euthanasia, and now it appears this pullet will make a complete recovery as she is on that track.