Moving on from Marek's

[realsis]

I'm so glad things are going well for you! That's wonderful news!

 

[GuppyTJ]

Hunter,

What was the outcome for your other 3 chicks? Did they get sick within the 2 week incubation period? Can you share if you cleaned the litter out of your coop or take any other actions?

I ask because I now have a case of Marek's. I have the sick chick quarantined but she was in the coop and free ranging with the others for a little while before I caught it/figured out what it was. Classic Marek's symptoms, unstable legs, irregular iris shape, grey eyes, gaping. All of these are signs of tumors in various parts of the body (nervous system, eyes, respiratory). She's still eating well and in no pain so I'm giving her one more day. She's 14 weeks old and has been sick for about 4 days now.

Thanks,
Guppy

 

[Hunter44]

Guppy,

My other three hens ended up perfectly healthy...I'm very lucky. I was pretty uneducated about Marek's, so after my first hen passed, the only precautions I took were cleaning out their coop and hoping for the best. Very sorry to hear she's sick. Best of luck and let me know if you need any help!

 

[chick little]

I had a 13 week chicken who died of marek luckley I did not have any more chickens at that time

 

[GuppyTJ]

Guppy,

My other three hens ended up perfectly healthy...I'm very lucky. I was pretty uneducated about Marek's, so after my first hen passed, the only precautions I took were cleaning out their coop and hoping for the best. Very sorry to hear she's sick. Best of luck and let me know if you need any help!

Thanks for the update, Hunter, very helpful. As an update here, I culled my little sick Marek's chick yesterday. She was slowly getting worse and had loads of Marek's symptoms (split leg paralysis, cloudy eyes with irregular pupils, gaping). She wasn't going to get better. Tumors don't grow and then miraculously disappear.

I took all the litter out of the coop yesterday and burned it. I flipped/turned over the soil in the coop, trying to bury the dander. I also separated my 8 cockerals from my 7 pullets, to try to reduce the stress/tension. They're starting to mature but at different rates which is causing stress for the smaller pullets.

I did all this but to be honest with myself and others, I reacted too slow. I need to get much faster taking decisive action. I also need to get "tougher," considering the good of the flock over the individual. I'm one of those cry-for-hours-when-an-animal-dies people (not alone, I know) but this behavior isn't helping the remaining chickens and they should be my top priority. Maybe these are learned behaviors that can come with hands-on experience.

Guppy

 

[GuppyTJ]

I had a 13 week chicken who died of marek luckley I did not have any more chickens at that time

Thanks, Chick Little. It always helps to know others have had similar experiences. It removes some of the guilt/second guessing when we realize we're not alone.

Guppy

 

[Bens-Hens]

We had it on our property, we suspect it was spread from rescue birds.

2 died, 3 culled and one was perfectly fine, never a symptom shown. I guess it just depends on how good the birds immune system is, and how well it handles stress as that is a key trigger.

We had a BIG clean out, we used DuPont's Virkon S and elbow grease, then hatched out own birds. Those birds are now at POL, and the second hatch are at 15 weeks and we have not seen any symptoms again. Proof will be in the pudding when our older birds are established layers, then I will be able to say confidently that we removed it from the property.

Also, I am pretty sure the incubation period is about 6 weeks.

 

[GuppyTJ]

We had it on our property, we suspect it was spread from rescue birds.

2 died, 3 culled and one was perfectly fine, never a symptom shown. I guess it just depends on how good the birds immune system is, and how well it handles stress as that is a key trigger.

We had a BIG clean out, we used DuPont's Virkon S and elbow grease, then hatched out own birds. Those birds are now at POL, and the second hatch are at 15 weeks and we have not seen any symptoms again. Proof will be in the pudding when our older birds are established layers, then I will be able to say confidently that we removed it from the property.

Also, I am pretty sure the incubation period is about 6 weeks.

Bens-Hens,

A few questions so I can learn from you.

1. What did you do with the 1 hen that never showed symptoms? Was there anything remarkable about her/different from the other chickens? Maybe she was the lead chicken so was less stressed? Are you keeping her with your new birds you hatched yourself?
2. Did you vaccinate the chicks from your hatches?
3. DuPont's Virkon S is new to me so it's a good tip for me in the future. What type of floor do you have in your coop? Do you have a run or do they free range? I ask because my chickens free range over a really big area. It's said that once you have Marek's "on your property", you'll always have it. It's primarily shed in their dander and feathers, which is very tiny and easily airborne. The virus lives for 2 years in the soil so I think that's why it's so very hard to get rid of once one of your chickens has had an active infection.
4. I've done a ton of Marek's research and despite this, one thing that is unclear to me is the incubation period. Even in the scholarly literature, it's often different. I think that's because there is a dormant stage for the virus, as it lives in virtually all chickens. Even vaccinated chickens are carriers. Then, there seems to be an active stage where it's mutating cells and creating tumors. It gets triggered (by stress and other things, as you said) to go from dormant to active, which is what the vaccine attempts to prevent from happening. "Incubation period" is defined as "The period between exposure to an infection and the appearance of the first symptoms." I read that chickens can start shedding the active virus cells in their dander (mostly in the dander but also in saliva, poo, etc.) up to 2 weeks before they show symptoms. So... regarding incubation period, some of the literature says the incubation period is between 7 and 20 days, depending on the source. Gail Damerow in the Chicken Health Handbook quotes the incubation period as 2 weeks. But then, other sources say it's many weeks. So, it's not clear to me what the actual incubation period is once there's been an active case in the flock. So... all this said, are you saying you understand the incubation period is 6 weeks? Related, how many days or weeks or whatever did each of your 5 chickens first start exhibiting symptoms?

Thanks so much, just trying to learn from your experience.
Guppy

 

[Bens-Hens]

I am no expert, only learned what I could as it happened to us. I am happy to add what I can.

Bens-Hens,

A few questions so I can learn from you.

1. What did you do with the 1 hen that never showed symptoms? Was there anything remarkable about her/different from the other chickens? Maybe she was the lead chicken so was less stressed? Are you keeping her with your new birds you hatched yourself?

The one survivor hen was given away. We were going to cull her too as part of a start over, but she was about to start laying, was beautiful and that was going to be a last resort. The day we got our rescue birds, we went with another family (kids school mates) We asked that family if they wanted to take her. Knowing their birds were vaccinated for MD and probably already carriers as our were. They took her and she started to lay a week later.
She was much younger than the rescue birds but was gaining in social stature as she grew to full size. She is now with the other family, with 6 full grown hens from the same commercial place we got our original birds, she is top of the pecking order there and the best layer of the flock.
There were no signs visible, nothing different about her other than happy and healthy, she had just finished her first mini moult when we dropped her off.

Here she is, Latte with my youngest son.




She has been there 5 months now, now sign of MD in any of their 7 birds. She was not vaccinated.

2. Did you vaccinate the chicks from your hatches?
Our four 20 week old birds were not vaccinated, but we did hatch them ourselves. We tried to get the vaccine but was hard to get here, and expensive.

Our ten 15 week old chicks were vaccinated at home for MD (HVT strain) which we found a supplier that would split the doses. We kept a few and sold the extra off through a local FB poultry forum.

3. What type of floor do you have in your coop? I'm wondering how you cleaned it with the DuPont's Virkon S. That's a good tip for me as I'd not heard of that product before.

At the time, we had a modified timber pallet floor inside a tin coop. Everything in there was removed and discarded including the nest boxes. Firstly, our family did a yard clean to find as many feathers as we could. I know it travels on dander too, but we thought it would not hurt to remove the old feathers blowing about the yard and run. I got a few of the 50g sachets of Virkon S from the feed store (makes about 2 gal) and sprayed everything left in there (meanwhile we were incubating our first hatch) once I had done a Virkon clean, and let it dry, I went back in with a home made concoction of cleaning products, detergent, hospital grade disinfectant and a bit of bleach. I then hand scrubbed everything, inside and out.
I read someplace that lime wash worked too, so I dusted the soil with that, then misted the Virkon over that too and left it for a week or so. All the feeders (mostly plastic) had been cleaned with Virkon, and before used again I wiped them over with a cloth and methylated spirits. The new chicks hatched, we raised in the brooder and a new mobile coop/tractor. This gave the run time, we want to leave it empty as long as possible. I think it was empty for about 8 weeks.

The coop and run got one last clean with Virkon and then I did some modification to it, new roosts a suspended floor (with sand under the roosts) the sand was playground grade stuff from the hardware. Made new nesting boxes which I have only just opened up.

Was a pretty big start over for us, but we now have 12 birds between 15-20 weeks old and not yet seen any signs.

4. I've done a ton of Marek's research and one thing that is unclear is the incubation period, even in the scholarly literature, it's often different. I think that's because there is a dormant stage for the virus, as it lives in virtually a;; chickens, even vaccinated ones. And there's the active stage where it's mutating cells and creating tumors. It gets triggered (by stress and other things, as you said) to go from dormant to active, which is what the vaccine attempts to prevent from happening. Some of the literature says the incubation period is between 7 and 20 days, depending on the source. But then, other sources say it's many weeks. So, it's not clear to me what the actual incubation period is once there's been an active case in the flock. Is this what you're saying is 6 weeks?

I too had read a few different time periods, but 6 weeks seemed most common. The clincher for me was how soon a bird can show symptoms. I read that chicks don't show visible signs of the disease before 6 weeks of age. If they are hatched by a broody they are exposed day 1, yet won't have those classic symptoms until about 6 weeks old. Seems the symptoms show up very fast, sometime the bird also dies very fast (our first bird was limping in the morning, dead in the afternoon) BUT, I have read there are earlier signs that are often missed in the time before the limping or wing drop. Wasting, droppings, lethargy and most importantly in some cases the eyes show signs.

When we got home from the vet and googled the disease we were shocked. As we learned more it was heart breaking and also enraging as we tried to get a vaccine or some way to fix the issue. Seemed no one really cared or was making an effort to stop the spreading of this disease. The thought of starting over was very hard, my wife even thought that keeping chickens was not for us, we were fearful of going anywhere that might have birds, we didn't want to spread out germs, or bring anyone else home (we have settled on that now but when it was new it felt like the dander was everywhere!)

What were we to do. We made a plan as above, stuck to it and so far so good, although we are not out of the woods yet.

I feel for any other family or breeder that goes through this, terrible time, but recoverable. I hope that helps in some way.

 

[GuppyTJ]

This is very helpful, Ben-Hen. Thank you SO much for taking the time to write this up in such detail.. Now I understand much better, what you did to clean, how you addressed the 1 remaining chicken, how you brought in new chickens. I'm going to do more research on the disease progression as this is a gap in my understanding. But... book learning is one thing, learning from another's experience is other and learning from one's own experience is even that much more of an eye opener.

I need a plan, like you created and executed. Right now, my "plan" is to wait and see what happens with this set of 15 chickens aged 14 to 16 weeks. Of the 15, 8 are cockerals so 6 are destined for the dinner table anyway. Which reminds me, I need to research if they are safe to eat if I cull them before seeing Marek's symptoms. At this point, I'm currently at 8 days from when I saw the first symptoms in the chick that had it. I'm watching them closely, their eyes, legs, wings, poo. I'm trying to keep their stress down and immunity up. Yet, they're at that point of maturing and they say even the stress of maturing can trigger the disease. Control what you can and try to not worry about the rest.

Thanks again. It helps to know I'm not alone and that I didn't do anything particularly wrong. Learning, sometimes, is not at all fun. You're right, it's enraging. And heartbreaking, this disease.
Guppy