Mereks? What do I do?

[Kenya Mwangi]

So I called them. Here's their number so you can: 417-532-4581.

I spoke to "Melissa." She said their policy is it's the customer's choice and they have never and will never tell anyone they should not get their chicks vaccinated under any circumstances.
So you need to stop with the misinformation. It's debunked.

Hello It seems different people there say different things. A man told me differently when I was there in person in Missouri.

I have no misinformation. I say what they told me. And I believe him more than you.

 

[Schmidt Hill Farm]

I went from 75-100 birds down to 24, then back up to 125 thereabouts by generally only breeding birds that never showed symptoms. Took about 2 years to let it cull all the birds prone to get it and test the ones that seemed to not react to it. It had been present for a while before I realized what it was. It killed at a fever pitch last year. Then everything left standing reproduced this spring and the flock acts like its never had an issue.

I’m sorry I’m just now getting back to this post. It’s been a busy last couple of weeks. To date I have lost about 35 birds. And here lately, it seems to only be one every week and a half. So it’s definitely slowed down because I was losing one to two birds a day at the beginning. That’s when I thought it was just coccidia. Cocci is back because I have a few birds that are pooping blood. I figure with all the rain we’ve been getting. the birds that are pooping Blood only hang out on the roof of the run where Water tends to pool. Then they drink from that water so it makes sense that they would get coccidia. They are on and try my best to drain any water that I find standing and I wash the roof every day with the water hose. We went from no rain at all to all the rain there ever was this summer. Honestly, I’m just having a hell of a time. I love all of my birds, but I have started culling the ones that are showing Merek‘s symptoms. I still have two batches of chicks that are coming up. And I’m really terrified of losing any of them because I have gotten so attached to them. They were hatched before I realized that any of my birds were sick. The youngest of chicks right at 5 weeks old. They are not housed in the other coops where the sick birds have been but they are still in my yard so I know it’s inevitable that they are going to get it if they haven’t already.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I’m sorry I’m just now getting back to this post. It’s been a busy last couple of weeks. To date I have lost about 35 birds. And here lately, it seems to only be one every week and a half. So it’s definitely slowed down because I was losing one to two birds a day at the beginning. That’s when I thought it was just coccidia. Cocci is back because I have a few birds that are pooping blood. I figure with all the rain we’ve been getting. the birds that are pooping Blood only hang out on the roof of the run where Water tends to pool. Then they drink from that water so it makes sense that they would get coccidia. They are on and try my best to drain any water that I find standing and I wash the roof every day with the water hose. We went from no rain at all to all the rain there ever was this summer. Honestly, I’m just having a hell of a time. I love all of my birds, but I have started culling the ones that are showing Merek‘s symptoms. I still have two batches of chicks that are coming up. And I’m really terrified of losing any of them because I have gotten so attached to them. They were hatched before I realized that any of my birds were sick. The youngest of chicks right at 5 weeks old. They are not housed in the other coops where the sick birds have been but they are still in my yard so I know it’s inevitable that they are going to get it if they haven’t already.

I too thought it was a nasty strain of coccidia when it first appeared on my farm a couple of years ago. And it may have been indirectly insofar as Marek’s makes the birds vulnerable to all sorts of secondary diseases.

When Marek’s was at its height, I lost the vast majority of my chicks. Nearly the entirety of all chicks produced in 2023. And yet, in 2024 my chick retention has been very high. What losses I’ve had are more likely predators. I culled 2 for being stumbly as a precaution.

All you can do is watch and see. If you lose much of these broods, the few that never develop symptoms will be special indeed.