MDV Marek’s Disease Discussion

[jolenesdad]

I had been searching for a current general discussion thread on Marek’s disease and have not found one, so I thought I’d make one. There is, of course, one of the preeminent resources on Marek’s here at BYC in article form, The Great Big Giant Marek’s Disease FAQ. Make sure you have read it! This thread will be a place for those with Marek’s experiences and knowledge to discuss the disease, their own management practices, thoughts and theories and everything associated to Marek’s. This thread is also a place for anyone to come and ask a question or to come ask the members with experience who are active here to come and view your own thread and offer advice and participate. To get the most out of discussing questions here, please ensure you’ve read the article linked above.

If you pop into this thread, please understand that many discussions in here may be higher-level thinking than just an individual flock basis, many discussions will be based on numerous personal experiences specific to individual scenarios and may not apply directly to you. Many people may specifically seek out information here or offer commentary *because* they have a unique case, so be aware that personal experience information is anecdotal. However, due to the ubiquitous and evolving nature of the disease, the knowledge we can gain from shared experiences is invaluable.

Marek’s often turns into a touchy-subject debate, and I’d like to do our best to avoid that here. As a golden rule for this thread, let’s understand that there are many factors to how Marek’s can affect a flock or an individual chicken. There are many valid reasons why anyone can prioritize certain management techniques or vaccination status for their own flock. As long as no one is knowingly providing birds exposed to Marek’s to an unwitting purchaser, let us not judge the management, culling choices, extended life care choices, or vaccination choices of someone in their own home flock here. Please also remember that there are quite a few strains of Mareks and the disease evolves, so what worked for you may not work for who you are advising, and what worked for someone else may not work for you.

lastly, to anyone who lands here from a google search as I am sure will happen: Mareks is not the end of chickens for you. It is highly unlikely that you’ll lose every bird, need to cull your flock, or have to abandon your dreams of backyard eggs. There are, of course, Marek’s disasters and we are here to help each other through those, too. Hopefully there will be plenty of people who feel comfortable enough sharing their successes and failures managing a Mareks flock here that you can make better decisions for how you can move forward.

Full disclosure: I’m setting this discussion up to learn more myself. I’m am far from an expert on the matter, I am simply an avid learner and sharer of knowledge hoping to create another resource to help me take better care of my birds.

Introduce yourself and any background and let’s learn from each other!

 

[jolenesdad]

So my background is I’m a newly diagnosed Marek’s flock. I had an older (3.5 years) hen succumb over a two week period. I didn’t expect Mareks because of her age and I keep a closed flock. I personally would say I have like a 90% bio security rating, I never bring in adult birds however I did once buy several week old chicks from a large reseller who resells hatchery (vaccinated) birds. My flock also free ranges with a large wild bird population around.

This hens symptoms were shockingly similar to standard Mareks paralysis symptoms of a younger bird with the disease. On the guidance of @casportpony I used the Texas a&m lab to do a necropsy, PCR test for Mareks and histology. It turns out she was riddled with tumor cells from Mareks in virtually her entire body. One specific area grew actual tumors and hit a nerve causing weakness. What actually took her down was pneumonia.

This was a couple of months ago and I have since lost one vaccinated pullet coming into lay, a trying time for a Mareks flock. I did not necropsy but I suspect Mareks. I an. It seeing any current symptoms. I have lost maybe 4 birds earlier this year to “random” deaths with no symptoms. Each of the birds had a reason to be “stressed” and looking back in sure if I had investigated the random deaths, I would have discovered Mareks then.

I’m moving soon so I really have spent quite a bit of time trying to delve into things and speaking to the poultry vets at a&m, because my first thought of course was omg I have to kill my birds. The head vet at a&m sort of laughed at me and explained how pervasive Mareks is in our environment. He said moving my birds is of least concern.

So my current plan is to move with my flock. I don’t think I have a super virulent strain. Once we are established I will likely not breed and add vaccinated chicks or maybe I will breed and experiment with vaccinating my own eggs I hatch. I’m likely choosing the vaccination route because I’m not a fan of culling the weak. I understand how integral that is to breeding for resistance, and I don’t think that’s in my cards. I’ll always keep a closed flock. I’ve been reading a lot about potential limiting severity by vaccinating adult birds, I don’t know if I’ll vaccinate my adult birds, probably not. I have a mix of 17 hens, 7 or so hatchery vaccinated and the rest non vaccinated that I hatched here.

 

[casportpony]

Great thread, thanks for starting it. I will look through some of my Marek's pictures and post them here.

 

[Lumikko]

So my background is I’m a newly diagnosed Marek’s flock. I had an older (3.5 years) hen succumb over a two week period. I didn’t expect Mareks because of her age and I keep a closed flock. I personally would say I have like a 90% bio security rating, I never bring in adult birds however I did once buy several week old chicks from a large reseller who resells hatchery (vaccinated) birds. My flock also free ranges with a large wild bird population around.

This hens symptoms were shockingly similar to standard Mareks paralysis symptoms of a younger bird with the disease. On the guidance of @casportpony I used the Texas a&m lab to do a necropsy, PCR test for Mareks and histology. It turns out she was riddled with tumor cells from Mareks in virtually her entire body. One specific area grew actual tumors and hit a nerve causing weakness. What actually took her down was pneumonia.

This was a couple of months ago and I have since lost one vaccinated pullet coming into lay, a trying time for a Mareks flock. I did not necropsy but I suspect Mareks. I an. It seeing any current symptoms. I have lost maybe 4 birds earlier this year to “random” deaths with no symptoms. Each of the birds had a reason to be “stressed” and looking back in sure if I had investigated the random deaths, I would have discovered Mareks then.

I’m moving soon so I really have spent quite a bit of time trying to delve into things and speaking to the poultry vets at a&m, because my first thought of course was omg I have to kill my birds. The head vet at a&m sort of laughed at me and explained how pervasive Mareks is in our environment. He said moving my birds is of least concern.

So my current plan is to move with my flock. I don’t think I have a super virulent strain. Once we are established I will likely not breed and add vaccinated chicks or maybe I will breed and experiment with vaccinating my own eggs I hatch. I’m likely choosing the vaccination route because I’m not a fan of culling the weak. I understand how integral that is to breeding for resistance, and I don’t think that’s in my cards. I’ll always keep a closed flock. I’ve been reading a lot about potential limiting severity by vaccinating adult birds, I don’t know if I’ll vaccinate my adult birds, probably not. I have a mix of 17 hens, 7 or so hatchery vaccinated and the rest non vaccinated that I hatched here.

Thank you for sharing this experience!

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Hen with suspected ocular Marek’s. She’s not blind, but I’m not sure how well she can see with that eye. She belongs to a friend’s flock, which probably means my flock has it too, though they don’t show symptoms. I believe my flock does have the paralysis strain due to a rooster who showed classic Marek’s symptoms before dying and a number of unknown deaths that have happened in the past.