Mareks Vaccine

[Nonnie195]

But, I want mama hen to raise them, so how can they be isolated? Mama hen and eggs are all in a separate room (the other chickens can see them but not touch them as they are separated by a chicken wire door that is in my coop). I know isolation means much farther away, but I am not sure that is really possible right now. I do have a 2 1/2 ft by 6 ft brooder box my husband made me when I had several pullets that I ordered of different sizes. I had them isolated for a month before integrating them, but they came to me from 8 to 12 weeks old so when I got them, I immediately put them in the box. It is not near the coop and it is very cold outside, wind chills in the 20s. I think that it would be very stressful to move mama and eggs now. Plus, when it does warm up, the small area has its own door so they can go outside without truly interacting with the other hens and rooster.

 

[chookaholic]

Hi Nonnie,

please don't fret out. Your chicks will be fine raised by their mama hen. No vaccination needed. In my opinion - and this is just an opinion - chicks raised by a hen are better off not being vaccinated for reasons mentioned in the links posted above.

In my experience chicks raised by a mother hen are much stronger and healthier than chicks raised in a brooder. When you watch a hen feeding her chicks you will notice that she picks up little bits of food and drops them in front of her chicks. Sometimes the chicks eat it when it falls from her beak. These bits of food have small quantities of the mother hen's saliva on them which contains antibodies and this is the equivalent of colostrum in mammals. The mother hen only does this for 3 or 4 days, after that the chicks have learnt what's good to eat. It has given the chicks' immune system an invaluable boost, not only against Mareks but also against everything else the mother hen has been exposed to in her life.

To those who've read my posts above: another breeding season is coming to an end here in New Zealand and fingers crossed, touch wood, so far I have only lost 2 birds to Mareks, one 3 week old Faverolles chick to the skin form last October and recently a 22 week old crossbred pullet to the emaciation form.

Most backyard flocks (including mine) never see a vaccine - we breed from the survivors which have developed natural immunity to all kinds of viruses, including Mareks.

One thing I have learnt - and this is of utmost importance - is to cull a bird as soon as it shows symptoms of Mareks. This ensures that the amount of virus shed is kept to a minimum.

When I continued to care for infected birds I only gave the virus the opportunity to multiply further and the bird the opportunity to shed even more virus to contaminate and the sicker a bird gets the more virus it sheds. There is no cure so off comes the head and they go into a hole in my veggie garden. Makes great fertilizer.

A small amount of Mareks virus in the environment is a good thing as it should be just enough for the bird to be able to develop natural immunity. This is the case for brooder raised chicks, too. An overload and the chicks develop Mareks. No virus and they have no immunity so can acquire Mareks at a later age (possibly up to 6 months).

 

[chookaholic]

But, I want mama hen to raise them, so how can they be isolated?

Don't isolate them, not even from your other birds. Just protect them from whatever predators you have in your area. The healthiest chicks are raised by a free ranging hen who takes them to all kinds of dirty places but this is usually not practicable because cats etc will steal the chicks one by one.

Also a dry coop for the chicks is invaluable as most soil borne diseases (including coccidiosis) needs moisture to thrive.

 

[Nonnie195]

I just spoke with a guy from Twin City Poultry Supply. He said he has been raising poultry for 30+ years. He told me that if the chicks hatched in an incubator, he would vaccinate; but, if the mama hen hatches the chicks, then there is no reason for the chicks to get vaccinated as they are pretty much already exposed. He told me he would hate to take my money when he wouldn't vaccinate them if they were his. I love dealing with honest people.

 

[chookaholic]

That's an incredibly honest reply from this person. A BIG thumbs up.

(However, I wouldn't vaccinate incubator hatched chicks, either, if they were to be adopted by a hen. If they are to be raised in a brooder and vaccination is an option then yes, certainly. Saves his customers from a lot of heartache.)

 

[chickengeorgeto]

However, a bird vaccinated against Mareks will be carrier and shedder of the Mareks Disease Virus (MDV) for life, therefore such a bird is able to infect other birds, especially when they are young.

If you don't understand the following sentence, taken from the source I initially quoted: 'However, vaccinated chickens still become infected and shed MDV'

The facts are that a vaccinated chicken will produce antibodies used to fight the Mareks virus, the same is true regarding any bird exposed to Mareks but who fights off the Mareks virus naturally.

This in no way means that the bird is symptomatic for Mareks. You could say the same things for humans who are vaccinated against the Small Pox, Polio, or influenza virus. Are you claiming that the Polio or Small Pox vaccines produce full blown cases of Polio or Small Pox in those vaccinated against these two diseases?

I suspect that this is the reason that I was told that there is currently no vaccine for Pullorum disease. The government won't allow it. It is more important for the USDA to have a reliable test that indicates an active Pullorum infection than it is to have a vaccine against Pullorum but that will invalidate the Pullorum Positive Antigen test, because every successfully vaccinated chicken will test positive for the Pullorum Antigen. Making it appear that the chicken in question has Pullorum. This is also applicable to Mareks except that there are dozens of Mareks strains and the Mareks virus is very difficult to vaccinate for.

 

[chookaholic]

Chickengeorge - I'm no virologist but I do know that the Mareks virus belongs to the family of herpes viruses which works differently from most other viruses.

You may know that among humans there is a sexually transmitted herpes virus which causes outbreaks in the infected individual but lies dormant most of the time. The individuals who carry this virus can infect their partners at any time. Also cervical cancer is caused by a herpes virus, so are warts - very different disease manifestations compared to the diseases you use as examples like polio and influenza - these work completely differently.

Salmonella pullorum is a bacterium - not a virus and a totally unrelated process needs to be used to immunise birds.

I conclude that the comparisons you use are invalid.

Have a read-up in the scientific literature about Mareks disease, Mareks virus and Mareks vaccine and you won't find anything that contradicts the statements I have made above.

 

[Nambroth]

I just spoke with a guy from Twin City Poultry Supply. He said he has been raising poultry for 30+ years. He told me that if the chicks hatched in an incubator, he would vaccinate; but, if the mama hen hatches the chicks, then there is no reason for the chicks to get vaccinated as they are pretty much already exposed. He told me he would hate to take my money when he wouldn't vaccinate them if they were his. I love dealing with honest people.

This is about right-- if you have Marek's disease on your property, and want your broody hen to raise chicks, they will be exposed nearly immediately. There wouldn't be too much of a point in vaccination, unless you have reasons to think your momma hen is not a carrier (if she was ever exposed, she IS a carrier). Still, please understand that there is a risk in this and the risk might be higher than incubator-vaccinated chicks. You may experience some loss of the chicks depending on the strain of the virus on your property, and how good momma's genetic immunity is that she's passed on to the chicks. There are a lot of factors at play.

Chickengeorge - I'm no virologist but I do know that the Mareks virus belongs to the family of herpes viruses which works differently from most other viruses.

You may know that among humans there is a sexually transmitted herpes virus which causes outbreaks in the infected individual but lies dormant most of the time. The individuals who carry this virus can infect their partners at any time. Also cervical cancer is caused by a herpes virus, so are warts - very different disease manifestations compared to the diseases you use as examples like polio and influenza - these work completely differently.

Salmonella pullorum is a bacterium - not a virus and a totally unrelated process needs to be used to immunise birds.

I conclude that the comparisons you use are invalid.

Have a read-up in the scientific literature about Mareks disease, Mareks virus and Mareks vaccine and you won't find anything that contradicts the statements I have made above.

This is a good comparison, and as a Marek's research nut, follows with everything I understand about the virus. Further, I have recently read a study that suggests that vaccination does NOT reduce the amount of virus shed by exposed birds (it is cited in my research in my signature).
So, one must assume with Marek's that any bird, regardless of vaccination, will shed the virus once they are exposed to it. Herpesviruses are very good at creating latency and shedding even with no symptoms shown, for the lifetime of the host. Marek's is just that much more nasty, given that it is airborne in super fine dust particles, and no contact is needed.

 

[Nambroth]

As I saw this information earlier, it is important to know what vaccine was used on your birds. If you get them from a hatchery, they will tell you which vaccine they use, just call them.

For most of us, especially those of us that vaccinate at home (with no access to the vaccines that hatcheries use!), we use the HVT vaccine. HVT stands for HerpesVirus of Turkeys and is the MVD-3 serotype of Marek's. A serotype is a species.
The type of Marek's that our chickens experience and suffer from is MDV-1 (Marek's Disease Virus, serotype 1), a different serotype.

So, HVT vaccine is indeed a live virus, but it can NOT cause chickens to get MDV-1. It also can NOT cause them to shed MDV-1. It simply cannot-- it is a different species entirely.

Newer vaccines derived from different serotypes may indeed cause live shedding of virus-- I do not know for sure and have not researched them in depth, but HVT vaccine can NOT.

 

[Nonnie195]

I have so much about if "Mareks is on the property." How would one know if it is on the property?