Not an Emergency...Marek's in the Flock

[fuzziecreatures]

I'm trying to get through the thread, but with work, kids, dogs, chickens, yard, etc. I'm only on page 113. I'm almost there, lol.
I'm making up a list of stuff I should have on hand... stuff I probably should have before but I wanted to go the more natural route. Not organic, but no antibiotics and no other junk. I sell my eggs to co-workers. I will let them know when I have to use any meds on them and if they choose not to buy anymore, that is fine. I understand.

My only chicken that I used antibiotics on so far, had died. We are currently on an egg strike because I dewormed with Wazine and will deworm again after freezer camp for the fall flock reduction. I currently have over 75 birds, I need to get that down to about 60 or less or they'll kill each other over the winter.

 

[Nambroth]

Now I just need to figure out my cleaning protocol now. I used to don goggles and a dust mask and leaf blow all the dust out of the shed and coop area twice yearly.... Now I guess I'm not doing that. The whole shed is probably 20x20 and 1 and 1/2 levels. Ventilation upstairs is a fan pulling air through. There isn't good drainage inside. I do plan on getting Oxine in the spring to do our spring cleaning and see how power washing goes with the drainage. Need to figure out how to not get water in all the electrical outlets and light sockets. I did want to replace the nest boxes with those metal roll out ones and the floor needs leveled and new flooring, tougher vinyl (the stuff now just gets holes in it easily with the bedding fork and it doesn't have sharp tines!). There is pics in my album. I'll take any suggestions recommended and see if it will fit into our planning.

Don your goggles and a mask again... what I did was:
Shovel out all bedding, and pile it into my compost and wet it, then put other compost on top. It's (it being Marek's) already in my yard and garden so I didn't see a reason not to keep composting. I just wet it and cover it, my goal is to reduce the amount of it that could be carried on the wind, etc.
Then I took a shop vac with a drywall filter in it and sucked up as much dander, debris, and dust as I possibly could. Took a few hours, but worth it. I sucked the outlet out with the shop vac.I did discard the shop vac bag after it was full.
I covered the outlet with painter's tape and then duct tape and doused everything in Odoban. Activated Oxine would work just as well of course. I did this earlier in the day on a DRY sunny day and aired the coop out to let it dry completely. Any items in the coop that you want to clean, you can do them in the sun after spraying them. UV is known to help break down viruses. It obviously, alone, won't kill all the virus in the area, but the sun DOES have some properties that help clean!

I hope this helps.
Once everything was dry, I re-assembled the coop as necessary.

 

[julie0477]

You can get the agriculture Dept in many states to have someone come to your farm and test the hens. I am on the A1 checks here in NC. and for $5.00 more I can get them to ck for almost anything. I love this program. I have been on it now for yrs. and have my flock tested reg. It gives me peace of mind.
My first flock got MG/MS. I had it destroyed and cried for ever. Then i cleanned for all I was worth. Now (after yrs more of hens and roos) hopefully I am free of disease. I do add new birds occ. but from hatching eggs or someone I trust to have one day old chicks shipped to me. If one starts to sneeze etc. They are out then , no question. It was hard and I feel for you. If you get them vacinated they will give off the germs but not get the disease. You must vaccinate from then on to keep a healthy flock.

I'm going to check in to this. I'm not a breeder or anything, but I have considered selling a few extra from hatches. I'd just feel a lot better if I had them tested every now and again instead of waiting to see if someone falls sick. I'd just feel terrible if I accidentally spread something serious to another flock.

 

[crazyhen]

Thats the way I felt. I never sell anything but eating eggs locally but wanted to know they were safe for me and mine as well. I had in the past ordered from a hatchery and got ms in my flock but also had bought from a local person but do not know where it originally came from. Denaguard is helpful in prevention on new flocks without symptoms.
I am hopeing to get some half Eng. and American buff orps this next spring. They are so pretty, and quite gentle. I have a blue orp and a white one I love already and the roos are gentle too. That will be one of the three types of hens I will be keeping from now on. I will have Kathys Del. and some wheaten Ameracuanas for the egg color too. I have two Jaerhons that lay cream colored eggs and am evaluated them too. One really seems like a sweet hen so far, the other is distant. Chickens like people are all different even in the same bunch of hatched eggs.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
It's really really easy to get secondary stuff even from vaccinated birds that are Marek's exposed. I lost 5 one year to secondary illness and they had all been vaccinated twice.

 

[ranchokelly]

Love the names, Casportpony! I've seen a lot of drunken/curly toe marek's. My current afflicted one has a strange symptom - like I tried to describe, she can't connect with her food - her aim is off, but she keeps trying. Her head also wobbles around as she concentrates between pecks, and it reminds me of Katherine Hepburn in her later years, "On Golden Pond" (sorry to make that connection - I'm not sure what the issue was with her, having seen the movie when I was pretty young).
I also refer to Marek's as "cherpes" or "chirpies", since they say it's a form of herpes virus!

ANYWAY, SEMI GOOD NEWS! There's some improvement, and I think she's regaining some use of her bad leg! What I've been doing is dissolving this Hypericum Perforatum, 30x tablets, in, in water and soaking bread in it to feed her. I had used it with vitamin B dissolvable tablets with my EE that recovered (she never had the limp, but some similar weird symptoms where her pecking aim was off). I didn't have any of the b vitamin tabs yesterday, so I used part of a dissolving "airborne" vitamin tablet. Today I bought more vitamin b , so she's getting that. Her sister is getting the same treatment - she has no symptoms, except I noticed a runny nose, but she's sitting and/or sleeping a LOT. I also have them separated to cut back on stress. Today it got cold and windy, so they are inside with me. Earlier the bad-leg hen was marching around the house squawking, still limping and slow, but seems to actually be using her bad foot.

Somewhere earlier in this thread I read what seemed like good advice - important things to consider is whether they're getting food, water and warmth, and to reduce stress. I think that maybe the lack of these basic things as they start to go downhill maybe finishes them in?
It's a major pain in the butt to have them pooping all over my dining room (the floors are unfinished, but still it's a lot of paper towel clean up!), but I really hope I can save them. I haven't ordered the vaccine yet - I'm in CA, so Twin cities charges $30 extra shipping charge for 2 days. It's a lot to pay when the majority of info says it's too late.

 

[schnebbles]

there is a thread on the silkie page on fb and it's convinced me to vaccinate mine. Not sure if the vaccine recommended there from a chicken doctor is different than twin city. firststatevetsupply.com is where I'm ordering. I can send the link from the fb page but not sure you can get it if you aren't a member of that group page.

I think that my other bird who died might have been stressed because I had her inside and gave her a bath/blow dry. She had been inside for a couple weeks and one night I bathed her and next day she went downhill fast.

 

[schnebbles]

Hypericum Perforatum - what is this supposed to do?

I'm still waiting on my curcumin/bioperine to arrive, ticked off how long it's taking.

 

[ranchokelly]

The hypericum stuff is st johns wort, according to online searches, usually for depression. But some entries say it helps nerve damage. I bought it after reading a post on here where it brought back a chicken with marek's.
Did the thread on FB convince you to vaccinate in general, or birds already infected? MIne are about 6 months old, I'm trying to decide if it's worth a try.
Seems to be the same vaccine, I've looked at first state, too. They all charge out the butt for shipping, which they say has to be 2 day.

 

[Nambroth]

I have read the St. John's Wort thread(s) and I really want it to be true. I'm not against trying it, but until I have "seen" (read) that it works in a Marek's confirmed bird, I remain sadly skeptical.