[non-emergency] Marek's Homeopathic Treatment - Video

[O.C.Chick]

Thanks NewHobby, Please keep us posted too. This is a learning curve for all of us. And even though it's emotionally draining, If even one beloved pet chicken is saved as a result of our collective information and research, something good has come out of it. Good luck to you!!!

 

[O.C.Chick]

UPDATE: No drastic decisions today...She seems just slightly better (could be my imagination), but not worse today. Her coordination is still pretty bad...equilibrium is still very off and head still twisted. However, she seems perfectly aware of everything going on around her, and still has a very good appetite. She ate 35 or more meal-worms in addition to hand-feeding formula and a little organic feed mixed with yogurt.

Today I also eased off of the vitamin supplements (don't want to O.D. her, since I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a deficiency). But, I tried a baby aspirin as suggested by "Doc" on FancyFeathers forum. And still will giver her the Hyspericum later tonight...Figure this can't do much harm and might help.

Hope everyone else's chickens are doing better. Will keep you all posted...

 

[babsbag]

O.C. Chick. I am going through the same sort of symptoms with one of my hens. She is about 7 months old. Her flock mates all seem ok for now. I had one die right before she got sick, but it had been injured (lost an eye...not blind, like in Marek's, but actually had the eye poked out). That hen was really quiet for a few days and like a dummy I didn't really get too concerned, I thought that she was just recovering from the eye problem. She was out and about after a few days, then the next day real quite again, and then that night...dead. I didn't have a necropsy done, I wish I had. I am thinking that maybe her eye got infected when it got poked out. I will certainly be more diligent from now on. I always thought that chickens just took care of themselves as long as they had good food and fresh water and a safe coop. Now I know better. Thank BYC. Obviously I am new to this.

The day before my other hen died this hen started with the twisted neck and inability to walk a straight line. It has been almost 3 weeks and she is no better, actually worse. She used to try and eat, but would miss what she tried to pick up. Now I hand feed her morning and night, but I don't think she will pull through this. She is definately under weight and very weak. I have tried the vitamins, the hypericum, the cranberries, and last of all, worming her. She struggles at time with swallowing and breathes through her mouth, almost like she is in a trance. I wormed her tonight, just in case, by some miracle, she has gapeworm. I took her to the the vet last week and also did a run of Baytril and Tylan 50. It is so frustrating and it seems, common. She gets wet crumbles, fruit, eggs, honey, yogurt, and anything else that mushes up and looks yummy. (My vet says she wants to come and eat at my house)

I also have a closed flock, but I do live in the country with other chickens within 1/4 mile. I am not convinced that it is Marek's, but I am also not convinced that it is not. I see that you live in CA and if you have to have your chicken put down

you can get a free necropsy done at the CA Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory. They will do one for free since it is from a backyard flock. If you contact them they will tell you how to get your hen to them. There is a form you need to fill out. Your vet can help you with shipping if you ask. Up in NO. CA. they use a service called IDEXX. I know it is hard to go through this, I did it a few years ago with a pet dove, but at least they can give you some answers so that you know what to look for in the future. Here is their web site.

http://cahfs.ucdavis.edu/

I hope that you don't need this information and that your chicky recovers. My friends think I am crazy to be this concerned about a chicken. It is nice to come to BYC and find others that are just as hooked. Good luck and please keep us posted.

-Barbara

 

[mypicklebird]

I agree, I hope you do not need the service- but if she does pass or if you have her euthanized- take advantage of the free testing at the CA labs. It is free if you drive her to one of the labs, or you have to pay the overnight shipping. I would not worry about the lab reporting you for having chickens in a no chicken zone, they are not going to report you to your city or county. They will send the lab report to you, or your vet if you put them down. They are doing disease survey work in the general poultry population. They are not interested in city ordinances.


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[O.C.Chick]

Barbara, I'm sorry you're having to go through this too.

Did your vet have any opinion on it being Marek's?

And thank you for the info on necropsy. I'm actually part of the Master Gardener program run through UC Davis, so I was going to contact them to see if they had info. You saved me several steps and a lot of time, so thanks a million! Also, I feel much more confident in their ability to give a proper diagnosis vs. my vet. Although they have a lab location about an hour from here, I would prefer over-nighting to Davis which is the main lab. I hope I don't have a dead bird to send

but best to be prepared.

I also lost one of my Araucana bantams suddenly in September, and thought it was egg-binding so did not do a necropsy. She had been perfectly healthy, then appeared to be broody for two days (on and off the nest)...She came out to eat, and I noticed that her comb was extremely pale and her vent was pretty crusty. I cleaned her up and put her in the house on a heating pad that night, and at 1:00 in the morning she let out a little shriek that woke me up, and she was dead. In retrospect I should have brought her for a necropsy, but who knew?

REGARDING SUPPLEMENTS: HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF "Beta 1,3-D-glucan" ?

Another forum member suggested looking into herbs that help with herpes virus. I have a reference book "prescription for Nutritional healing" which suggests "Beta 1,3-D-glucan is useful for treating any bacterial viral or fungal disease...Stimulates the activity of macrophages, immune cells that surround and digest surrounding microorganisms and cellular debris"

Medical research has proven it notably effective in strengthening the immune system and treating certain cancers, tumors, and bacterial infections. I am going to buy some now and try it. A shot in the dark, We'll see.....

 

[CityChicker]

I would highly recommend necropsy as well to anyone that loses a bird, especially if it is available free or low cost. You (universal "you") may discover that your bird had something completely different. Really, to be honest, if an adult chicken became sick, one of the *last* things I would suspect would be Marek's. Marek's is an illness of chicks/young birds (didn't reread the thread, but I think the OP's bird is a youngster?). Anyway, if you (again, universal "you") have a sick adult bird, it is highly doubtful it is Marek's. Marek's certainly *can* occur in adults, but it is not at all common (in adults) and generally is only seen in birds that are old, weak, or have something else wrong with them as well (again, speaking of adult birds). It is much more known as a disease of chicks.

I really would not worry that much about future illnesses in adult birds in a flock with Marek's, especially if you are just a private chicken keeper that doesn't sell chicks. If you bring in new chicks, just vaccinate or have them vaccinated for Marek's. When you have an outbreak of Marek's in your chicks, it is almost always because they contracted it from adult birds in the vicinity that are carriers (and may have never shown any signs).

 

[babsbag]

My hen went on to a better place last night.

I hope yours is doing better.

My vet did mention Marek's, but we didn't discuss it at length as I told her not to mention the "M" word. She gave me some Baytril, at my request, but really didin't hear or see anything that warranted that. I was hoping for an ear infection to explain the balance problem. She also mentioned Botulism, and I told her that I had done the Epsom Salt flush already with no change.

I took my hen to the vet for transport this morning and the vet was still pretty baffled by the symptoms and the fact that she hung on this long and that none of my other chickens are sick. Other than the wry neck, she was never paralyzed, just had no balance. The wry neck did go away, but then the problem swallowing started. And the deep, deep, sleep, like a trance that she would go into. Couldn't wake her up when she was like that. I thought maybe she had encephalitis.

Years ago,when my dove was sick with the exact same symptoms, and I mean EXACT, I had a necropsy done and they never found the cause. At the time I suspected West Nile or Newcastle, but that never played out.

I will let you know what they find, if anything. I hope the best for you and your flock. And I will vaccinate for Marek's from here on out, just in case. The lady I got these birds from had quite a few. She raised her own chicks and said that she never had any Marek's. She was very particular about her "babies" so I think she was telling me the truth. She almost wouldn't sell them to me as I had 2 young RIR standard hens and she was afraid they would pick on the bantams, even though they were about the same size. I gave the RIRs away, ( I only had them 2 days, they lived in my dog run), and then she let me have the birds that she had for sell.

Good luck, keep us posted.

 

[O.C.Chick]

Barbara, I'm SO sorry to hear about your bird!

Please do let us know what they find.

CityChicker, Here's a time-line of events to see if there are any clues to Marek's or any other disease:

September 7 2009 - Appenzellers were hatched. (They lived inside, unexposed to the other chickens for 6 weeks)
Early October - My Araucana bantam, 6 months, unexpectedly died. I unfortunately didn't do a necropsy
Late October - I moved the Appenzellers in with the others (at approximately 6 weeks old), and allowed them to free-range during the day
December 3 - My first Appenzeller Dottie got extremely sick with flaccid wings, neck, and legs (could not stand)
December 6 - The sick Appenzeller made a complete recovery while on Vet-prescribed Sulfa-Trimethaprim
December 8 - Another Araucana Bantam (8 months old at the time) develops the exact same symptoms
December 11 - The Araucana bantam makes a complete recovery. The entire flock was on Corid at the time
December 21 - The second Appenzeller Renee develops the same symptoms but less severe. Vet put the flock on Sulmet, but she did not respond and got worse.
December 26 - Renee went on Chlorotetracycline
December 30 - Renee made a full recovery
January 17 2010 - Appenzeller Dottie starts showing wing droop again
January 18 - She is slightly worse, so Vet puts her on Albon. She does not respond and gets worse.
January 22 - Vet puts her on SulfaTrimethaprim again. She does not respond, and so begins my BYC post...

Does this give anyone any clues? (Aside from the fact that my Vet over-prescribes antibiotics?*

)

* By the way, I am beginning to doubt that the antibiotics were the reason that any of them recovered, unless it helped with symptoms due to treating a secondary bacterial infection of some sort.

 

[cicene mete]

OC Chick, although chickens with Marek's disease show different symptoms, all of mine at one point or another assumed telltale 1 foot forward 1 foot back position. Ultimately, this would lead to a full "split," but even before that it was noticeable and unlike anything any of my healthy chickens ever exhibited. The forward foot always looks odd and somehow unnatural.

Having said that, I know that for some, Marek's only affects the eye, or one or both wings, etc. Also, in response to CityChicker, although it is much more common for young chickens to be affected, our first chicken to contract Marek's was one year old, the subsequent two were younger.

 

[O.C.Chick]

Cicene: Thanks for the insight. Everyone's input has been another piece to the puzzle, so to speak. Having not experienced this before myself, it's so hard to "match the symptoms to the textbook" and I am so grateful for all of the information everyone has been providing on this forum. I feel bad that I'm asking everyone to recount their bad experiences, but hopefully something positive will come of it in the learning curve for all of us.

Today I am trying the Beta 1,3-D-glucan on her...A shot in the dark but we'll see. 2 doses so far today. She seems happy, but no real change..

Putting her to bed now, I'll post again tomorrow.