Moving Forward- Breeding for Resistance to Marek's Disease

[chickengr]

All of you have been SO helpful. I'm definitely going the herbal route. Am going to get some Oregano Oil for sure. Have gotten Tumeric but I doubt the little amount they'd get from their feed (with 100 birds eating) would be enough to be helpful....the oil is far more "sticky" to crumbles and pellets, I would think. The garlic I will struggle with because the sheer volume I'd have to press for fresh a couple times a week. But am going to think on that, too.

you can put cloves of garlic in their water once a week or so. no need to crash it. acv in water is good as well, but not all the time. I put a teaspoon acv and 1 clove of garlic in 2 litres of water.

 

[PaulaBowie]

I am not sure if I am dealing with Mareks. I only have a small flock.10 birds. Mixed heritage breed. This is the second bird who has become disorganized in her walking. She is not paralyzed as she grips your hand very firmly when you pick her up. She can't seem to coordinate the use of her feet enough to walk. When I put her down I have to uncross her feet and unclench her feet so she can balance herself in the sitting position. Sometimes she falls over and I find her lying on her side and have to re-right her.She is 4 years old and otherwise perfectly healthy. Stopped laying eggs a few months ago. She eats very well and drinks well and poops huge well formed poops. I had another one like this that had the exact same symptoms whom I carried out to the yard everyday for six months until she was attacked by ravens and I had to put her down. Has anyone had any luck in reversing or stopping the decline?

 

[chickengr]

I am not sure if I am dealing with Mareks. I only have a small flock.10 birds. Mixed heritage breed. This is the second bird who has become disorganized in her walking. She is not paralyzed as she grips your hand very firmly when you pick her up. She can't seem to coordinate the use of her feet enough to walk. When I put her down I have to uncross her feet and unclench her feet so she can balance herself in the sitting position. Sometimes she falls over and I find her lying on her side and have to re-right her.She is 4 years old and otherwise perfectly healthy. Stopped laying eggs a few months ago. She eats very well and drinks well and poops huge well formed poops. I had another one like this that had the exact same symptoms whom I carried out to the yard everyday for six months until she was attacked by ravens and I had to put her down. Has anyone had any luck in reversing or stopping the decline?

I had a pullet with bumble foot who ate and drank but couldn't walk. my vet didn't pay any attention to bumble foot but suspected salmonella. with baytril for 6 days she got better.

 

[PaulaBowie]

Thanks but her feet are clear.

 

[ochochicas]

You should go over and read the Marek's thread. How old was the other bird that died? Usually Marek's affects younger birds (under a year old) but sometimes older birds do get it. The oldest bird I had that died from Marek's was around 13 months. With Marek's, they will progressively get worse until they either can't walk at all or they will waste away from internal tumors. There are other disease that have similar signs, like Leukosis.

 

[chooks4life]

you can put cloves of garlic in their water once a week or so. no need to crash it. acv in water is good as well, but not all the time. I put a teaspoon acv and 1 clove of garlic in 2 litres of water.

That is true, it's one way of administering it, but the powerful antibiotic, antimicrobial (etc) Allicin is only created by the enzyme interaction that occurs in freshly crushed or minced or otherwise damaged cloves. There are still powerful components of whole garlic that hasn't been damaged, it will still help, but you will need to crush it for certain effects. Many sources consider Allicin to be the most powerful component of garlic.

Interestingly specific info below, I thought! And now I am thinking a cockerel I thought was hurt was in fact paralyzed from Marek's.

I am not sure if I am dealing with Mareks. I only have a small flock.10 birds. Mixed heritage breed. This is the second bird who has become disorganized in her walking. She is not paralyzed as she grips your hand very firmly when you pick her up. She can't seem to coordinate the use of her feet enough to walk. When I put her down I have to uncross her feet and unclench her feet so she can balance herself in the sitting position. Sometimes she falls over and I find her lying on her side and have to re-right her.She is 4 years old and otherwise perfectly healthy. Stopped laying eggs a few months ago. She eats very well and drinks well and poops huge well formed poops. I had another one like this that had the exact same symptoms whom I carried out to the yard everyday for six months until she was attacked by ravens and I had to put her down. Has anyone had any luck in reversing or stopping the decline?

Yes, some people have. Some birds do overcome it by themselves. Some people have experimented with arresting the progress with Meloxicam though it does not seem to reverse it but who knows, might form a useful adjunct in a combination therapy. Though because St John's Wort interacts with many medications I would NOT use it in conjunction with that. Doubtless there will be other things that work too. If people don't give up, sooner or later we will beat this disease, I believe.

For some scientific information on the why and how Hypericum Perforatum (both homepathic and natural herb or extract forms) work, I suggest you go to:
Quote: (I recently found some peer reviewed research on homeopathy done by some of the world's most respected scientific journals, so I posted that, interesting stuff, but I think the herb by itself is probably a better bet, too many homeopathic formulas do not seem to work. Dozens of pages before the homeopathy research which is at the end of the thread, I posted the scientific research on why St John's Wort (hypericum perforatum) works against viruses, tumors, etc, but it's now a long thread to wade through complete with a heck of a lot of hijacking by those who think they're saving the masses from the woo-woo of homeopathy --- well intentioned but utterly unhelpful --- so if it's too much of a headache to go through just PM me or let me know here and I will post the research directly).

Best wishes.

 

[chickengr]

That is true, it's one way of administering it, but the powerful antibiotic, antimicrobial (etc) Allicin is only created by the enzyme interaction that occurs in freshly crushed or minced or otherwise damaged cloves. There are still powerful components of whole garlic that hasn't been damaged, it will still help, but you will need to crush it for certain effects. Many sources consider Allicin to be the most powerful component of garlic.

Interestingly specific info below, I thought! And now I am thinking a cockerel I thought was hurt was in fact paralyzed from Marek's.


Yes, some people have. Some birds do overcome it by themselves. Some people have experimented with arresting the progress with Meloxicam though it does not seem to reverse it but who knows, might form a useful adjunct in a combination therapy. Though because St John's Wort interacts with many medications I would NOT use it in conjunction with that. Doubtless there will be other things that work too. If people don't give up, sooner or later we will beat this disease, I believe.

For some scientific information on the why and how Hypericum Perforatum (both homepathic and natural herb or extract forms) work, I suggest you go to:
(I recently found some peer reviewed research on homeopathy done by some of the world's most respected scientific journals, so I posted that, interesting stuff, but I think the herb by itself is probably a better bet, too many homeopathic formulas do not seem to work. Dozens of pages before the homeopathy research which is at the end of the thread, I posted the scientific research on why St John's Wort (hypericum perforatum) works against viruses, tumors, etc, but it's now a long thread to wade through complete with a heck of a lot of hijacking by those who think they're saving the masses from the woo-woo of homeopathy --- well intentioned but utterly unhelpful --- so if it's too much of a headache to go through just PM me or let me know here and I will post the research directly).

Best wishes.

I have read that St John's Wort is toxic for chickens? I use it myself but never gave it to my chickens. is there any quantity we can give them without doing any harm?

 

[chooks4life]

I have read that St John's Wort is toxic for chickens? I use it myself but never gave it to my chickens. is there any quantity we can give them without doing any harm?

Yeah, anything is toxic in overdose, SJW included. Almost all sources claiming this and that and the other thing are 'toxic' are failing to mention that dosage, in fact they seldom mention any dosage whatsoever, or their sources for the claims made.

If you delve into research claiming any herb is toxic, almost as a rule you will find the researchers (if the source was a scientific one) have starved the animals until they were forced to only subsist on that herb alone - for as long as it took until they died. If they didn't die quick enough, they tend to use a concentrated dose or extract (which, as it's often extracted using harmful methods or with addition of toxins, or denatures the components during extraction therefore interfering with their assimilability, is often dangerous whether concentrated or not)... And if necessary they force feed or inject until they achieve the desired result. Hardly something to apply to a natural foraging scenario.

If the source is not a scientific one, often the 'toxic' claim is anecdotal, it's based on correlation not causation, and quite often human (mis)management is the root cause of the problem arising. For example mineral deficient livestock being suddenly given access to SJW - or just livestock that have never met the plant before - a perfect scenario for overdose and problems. Livestock on balanced diets or raised in paddocks with SJW are far less likely to overdose.

SJW is indeed toxic to chickens - in the right dose; in small doses it's powerfully medicinal. It's known to cause photosensitizing in large doses; the scenario in which chickens consume large doses is almost always going to be solely due to human error. Right now, my chickens have access to SJW every single day, and have had for months. There have been no problems. Those that do eat it only eat very little. If I kept them in a pen with no greens for months and then threw in handfuls though I expect there would be some toxicity cases. Not among my smarter chickens though, some of them know better.

Chickens (and other animals) don't see SJW and scoff the whole plant in massive quantities --- unless they are experiencing one or more of several predisposing factors; 1) they have been deprived enough to develop pica, (common in Isabrowns and the likes for example, they DO need protecting from themselves), 2) they have been severely deprived of greens (and also lack the instinct to take it easy on new fodder), then someone provides SJW in bulk or they suddenly have access to it, in which case they may overdose, or 3) mistakes are made in dosage of medicinal application of it.

Obviously the purpose of toxicity studies are to find out how toxic it is, but then almost as a rule the whole plant gets slandered as 'toxic' without mentioning the mitigating factors. You can prove anything is toxic using those methods. Every single thing we eat - and everything we breathe including pure oxygen - is toxic in the right dose.

Hope this helps.... Here is some research on SJW. Some other viral diseases predispose chickens to susceptibility to Marek's and SJW has been studied against those viruses with positive results - also somewhere on the pubmed site, can find it if you like... But I don't know if it's yet been studied against Marek's. But the anti-cancer and antiviral effects have been noted in every species it's been studied in, to the best of my knowledge.

, extracts of H. perforatum have been used over thousands of years to treat cuts, abrasions, and other wounds. Its usefulness in reducing inflammation is well known, and appears to be related, at least in part, to its ability to serve as an antibacterial agent. Recent research also suggests that it is useful in combating viruses.
Antibacterial properties of H. perforatum extracts were reported by Russian scientists in 1959 (Schempp et al. 1999). The main antibacterial component was determined to be hyperforin (Bystrov et al. 1975). Studies show that hyperforin inhibits the growth of certain types of microorganisms. Growth inhibition occurred for all gram-positive bacteria tested, although no growth-inhibitory effects were seen in the gram-negative bacteria tested (Bystrov et al. 1975).

Methicillin-resistant (MRSA) and penicillin-resistant (PRSA) Staphylococcus aureus were especially susceptible to hyperforin. The MRSA strain was shown to be resistant to several types of penicillins, ofloxacin, clindamycin, erythromycin, cephalosporins, and gentamicin (Bystrov et al. 1975).

Extracts of SJW have long been regarded as being effective against various classes of viruses. Studies by Mishenkova et al. (1975) indicated that flavonoid and catechin-containing fractions of SJW are active against influenza virus.
Since 1988, the virucidal activities of hypericin extract have been investigated against many other forms of viruses (Diwu 1995).

Hypericin compounds are effective against enveloped viruses, but not nonenveloped viruses (Diwu 1995), particularly when activated by light (Carpenter and Kraus 1991; Hudson, Harris, and Towers 1993; Hudson, Graham, and Towers 1994).

Hypericin inactivates enveloped viruses at different points in the viral life cycle (Lenard, Rabson, and Vanderoef 1993). Degar et al. (1992) suggested that hypericin inactivates enveloped viruses by altering viral proteins, and not nucleic acids as targeted by antiviral nucleosides.

Hypericin also inhibits the ability of viruses to fuse with cell membranes (Degar et al. 1992; Lenard, Rabson, and Vanderoef 1993), which may explain why hypericin inactivates enveloped viruses rather than nonenveloped ones.
These promising in vitro results have begun to promote various in vivo studies of certain viruses in mice.

These include LP-BMS murine immunodeficiency viruses, murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV), Sindbis virus, Friend virus, and Ranscher leukemia virus (Hudson, Lopez-Bazzocchi, and Towers 1991; Meruelo 1993; Stevenson and Lenard 1993).

Hypericin also shows in vitro activity against influenza and herpes viruses (Tang et al. 1990), vesiculostomatitis and Sendai viruses (Lenard, Rabson, and Vanderoef 1993), and duck hepatitis B virus (Moraleda et al. 1993).

Hypericin is used to inactivate several enveloped viruses present in human blood and to treat acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) patients (Holden 1991; Meruelo 1993).

Working with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Degar et al. (1992) observed changes in the p24 protein and the p24-containing gag precursor, p55. They also observed that a recombinant p24 formed an anti-p24 immunoreactive material. This indicated the occurrence of alterations of p24, and such alterations may be able to inhibit the release of reverse transcriptase activity....

...Regarding other viruses, a noteworthy finding is that hypericin completely inactivated bovine diarrhea virus (BVDV) in vitro in the presence of light (Prince et al. 2000)....

11.6.3. Anticancer Properties

Hyperforin and hypericin have also been examined for their anticancer properties. According to Schempp et al. (2002), hyperforin inhibits tumor cell growth in vitro. The mechanism involves induction of apoptosis (programmed cell death) through the activation of caspases, which are cysteine proteases that trigger a cascade of proteolytic cleavage occurrences in mammalian cells. Hyperforin also causes the release of cytochrome c from isolated mitochondria. Mitochondrial activation is an early event in hyperforin-mediated apoptosis, and hyperforin inhibits tumor growth in vivo (Schempp et al. 2002).

Schempp and his colleagues agreed that since hyperforin has significant antitumor activity, is readily available in high quantities (since it is naturally occurring in abundance), and has low toxicity in vivo, hyperforin holds promise of being an interesting novel antineoplastic agent. Other in vitro studies demonstrated that hyperforin in conjunction with polyphenolic procyanidin B2 effectively inhibited the growth of leukemia K562 and U937 cells, brain glioblastoma cells LN229, and normal human astrocytes (Hostanska et al. 2003).

Hypericin has also been investigated as an anticancer agent, reportedly inhibiting the growth of cells derived from a variety of neoplastic tissues, including glioma, neuroblastoma, adenoma, mesothelioma, melanoma, carcinoma, sarcoma, and leukemia (Fox et al. 1998).

The activity of hypericin is attributed to its photodynamic properties (Agostinis et al. 2002). In the presence of light and oxygen, hypericin acts as a powerful natural photosensitizer, generating superoxide radicals that form peroxide or hydroxyl radicals, or singlet oxygen molecules that kill tumor cells.

In this way, hypericin can be used as a component of photodynamic therapy (PDT; Agostinis et al. 2002). At first, PDT was used only for skin lesions, but it is becoming increasingly accepted as a treatment for many types of tumors.

Best wishes.

 

[chooks4life]

More specifically, the quantity which you can give without doing harm would be rather small I think. If one adult human takes several thousand milligrams a day of condensed herb matter or extract, maybe about 50 would be the upper limit for chickens... That is just a very rough guess though, I'd definitely need to study it more. Old herbal textbooks for farmers used SJW regularly so I could go check some of those that I have for a better guess.

It's cumulative, moreso in some individuals than others, and a damaged liver is one predisposing factor towards an animal rapidly reaching overdose; I think in treatment of an animal in which you are giving large quantities (upper limit sort of thing) you'd want to isolate the animal somewhere predominantly under shade to prevent excessive sun exposure which obviously could cause problems.

Complete prevention of all sun exposure however would probably be counterproductive as the photosensitizing effect appears tied into some of its beneficial effects.

Best wishes.

 

[chickengr]

More specifically, the quantity which you can give without doing harm would be rather small I think. If one adult human takes several thousand milligrams a day of condensed herb matter or extract, maybe about 50 would be the upper limit for chickens... That is just a very rough guess though, I'd definitely need to study it more. Old herbal textbooks for farmers used SJW regularly so I could go check some of those that I have for a better guess.

It's cumulative, moreso in some individuals than others, and a damaged liver is one predisposing factor towards an animal rapidly reaching overdose; I think in treatment of an animal in which you are giving large quantities (upper limit sort of thing) you'd want to isolate the animal somewhere predominantly under shade to prevent excessive sun exposure which obviously could cause problems.

Complete prevention of all sun exposure however would probably be counterproductive as the photosensitizing effect appears tied into some of its beneficial effects.

Best wishes.

thank you for all the information.

I don't have fresh SJW. only dried herb and oil. I guess if I put 1-2 drops in 1 l of water or boil/soak some dried herb it wouldn't be too much.

before I got chickens I did a lot of research and found that garlic and onion are not good for chickens. but later I found out that people do give them so I tried. my chickens love both and not only they have never had any problem but they are getting well sooner with garlic and onion (I live in greece where it is very hot, windy with strong storms so there are plenty of viruses). my vet does not approve acv either. when I mentioned iodine he got mad and told me that iodine had been used by our grannies who didn't know what to do. but when all of my chickens survived dry and wet pox thanks to iodine he was surprised and didn't say a word. at least he started to pay attention when I say what I give my chickens and is willing to learn.