Thanks for sharing that. All common sense went out the window to me when she mentioned raising a few turkeys with a flock of chickens. I won't argue about it either.
The reason behind it is simple and commonsense; while they don't 'catch' Marek's from the turkeys per se, they do gain antibodies to it via some comparatively harmless exposure.
I've found people making all sorts of claims about raising them together on this forum despite the problems that also turn up on the forum, and the century long practice of raising different Avian species separate.
Yep, and I'm one of those people you've 'found' making such claims, lol, we did discuss this recently. What works for some does not work for all but it doesn't mean that there is only one 'proper' way to raise poultry.
Regardless of a given separatist practice being a century old, historically there's been far more centuries of raising them together.
A comparatively modern trend working in practice for some people does not equate to representing the only commonsense approach to managing a situation.
When science discovered turkeys don't get Marek's and a vaccine of non-infectious type was derived from the turkey virus which blocks Marek's from infecting turkeys. In simple terms I need to understand, the turkey virus in the vaccine does not put a case of Marek's in the chicken as some other vaccines do. In the case of the vaccine derived from turkeys, it must get into the chicken's system before the Marek's virus does.
So that does not even justify raising turkeys with chickens, in addition to the other reasons (Histomoniasis, bickering, injuries, increasing the odds of other viral mutation, etc.).
Turkeys do get Marek's as far as I understand, just not the same form and it's not anywhere near as much of a problem for them. Chickens exposed to them develop antibodies that assist them when they are later exposed to the chicken's form of MDV. Those statements have not been challenged on any scientific site I've seen, right now it appears to be accepted as the facts of the matter.
As for the bickering etc, that doesn't happen in all flocks, and blackhead isn't a problem for all flocks either, and none of those potential issues are enough of a risk to be worth writing off everyone who keeps inclusive/mixed flocks as being improper poultry keepers. Not saying you're doing that, obviously. Just making a case for the many and varied ways one can 'properly' raise a healthy flock, mixed or otherwise.
Statistically speaking, there's far greater risk of viral mutations occurring in even non mixed flocks where combination vaccines are used, and/or strong chemical/artificial treatments, than from species mixing as they naturally do. No species naturally lives in isolation and no matter your security attempts you cannot guarantee them isolation from the greater ecosystem.
