Neutering your Cockerals so they can live!

[Granitestater]

My daughter is 16 years old. We have a bachelor pad that had six roosters and cockerels. Unfortunately, we also have Marek’s disease in our flock, and we just had to euthanize her favorite rooster, am Ameraucana named Vespucci. Marek’s makes the whole cockerel situation worse, as we can’t sell or adopt out any birds. So, when we bred birds last year, she had to pick her favorite cockerels and we did butcher the rest for food. That was a very hard and sad day. Here are a few pics from our bachelor pen.

My gosh they are so beautiful! Did Vespucci have Mareks? Is it a microbe caused disease?

 

[aart]

Is it a microbe caused disease?

Mareks is a Virus.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

My gosh they are so beautiful! Did Vespucci have Mareks? Is it a microbe caused disease?

Thank you! Vespucci was the solid black bird, and he had the most amazing iridescent colors of blue and violet in his black feathers. Marek’s disease virus is a herpesvirus that infects many commercial and backyard chickens. I wish that I had been much more careful about biosecurity as a newbie - we bought infected chicks from a breeder and infected all of our chickens and the premises. We are always waiting for the next bird to get sick, although at least Vespy was the first in the last six months... It’s been an especially difficult learning experience for my daughter. There are many posts in BYCs about Marek’s, and many refer to this article below created by a member. It’s so hard to lose your treasured birds - sincerely wishing you happier chicken keeping times ahead!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq.66077/

 

[Granitestater]

There's plenty of people on byc that would take the roosters shoot im an hour up the road from they op I'd rather see them rehomed than go through surgery

Wish I knew then what I know now and that I knew about you and your locale. Maybe someday I'll forgive myself.
Bless the beasts and the children.