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

[BigECarter]

CeeJ, am I correct that you've lost birds from both flocks? If so, I don't see any reason not to combine the flocks. Have any of your birds been vaccinated for Marek's? You've probably said, but I don't remember.

I have a survivor who is not in great health. He seems fine, but is a little lethargic and I never see solid poops from him. But he is growing and developing. Anyone have any guesses as to if he has permanent damage from Marek's or if he is considered symptomatic? I guess there's probably no way to know, but if he does have Marek's, he's had it since late June, if not earlier. Sweet boy. I'll be sad, but not surprised, if he doesn't make it.

On a positive note - my chicks from MM ship today.

 

[seminolewind]

Ceej, I agree with Nambroth. I think with those expensive lab negatives, it would be better to send blood to Texas A&M. I think the test itself is $20.00 Your chicken may have died with nerves inflamed rather than tumors, or maybe after finding an illness, they didn't go further?

Most times if I remove dirty shavings , I spray the coop down with Virkon. It's industrial and has Marek's specifically listed and other nasty bugs. I chose it because I read that it does work on wood, where some of those chemicals do not work on a porous surface.

I have 2 together that are symptomatic. I also question chicks dying, I seem to think there's a connection between youngsters possibly giving off higher amounts of virus. Who knows.

 

[Harry Rooster]

I finally got my necropsy report several months after the fact. Several months! It was ridiculous how long it took for me to get it from the vet. By that time, we had several die, and had to cull the rest of the new pullets. Sealed off the pen they were in so no other free range chickens could get into it, and I had nursed my cockrel back to health. He is doing fine and has a separate pen of his own now. Got some Oxine. All the rest of my original chickens seem to be fine with no problems. I will never get new chickens again. We will just do what we were doing before and have new babies each year when they come around. We've had several chicks this time around and luckily none have been gotten by the predators. The necropsy report was terrible! Many diseases were discovered in the pullets I sent in. Several different kinds of diseases including Mareks, or however you spell it, IC, and a host of others I can't even remember. I can't believe they had all those things wrong with them. It was a terrible experience and very sad. It also ran me ragged and totally disrupted my life for a long time. Still haven't gotten quite back to normal yet. It was unbelievable all the stuff on that report. If anyone really needs to know everything, I could get the report out and put it all in, but if there's not really a need, I'll just leave it at that. Hope I never am faced with anything like that again! So sad to have to cull them all. I can't kill anything.

But on a high note, I did save all my original free range chickens, and my cockrel, now a rooster, my pet rooster, is fine!

 

[CeeJ]

Thank you Nambroth!

My big coop has no birds with active symptoms. So if Move my remaining teenagers there it sounds like it wouldn't be much different than their current exposure. I will then Oxine (cos I just bought it and can't afford another chrmical) the teenager coop. Leave it empty for 2 weeks and hope no one else shows symptoms in that time. I will ise that coop as my hospital I guess. And clean it with oxine between sick birds.

But first another question. Do you know how long the incubation for symptoms takes? I just put 2 symtomatic birds down from the teenager coop and I had sick/well birds together in there as I was told it was not Mareks. Would it be better to wait x ampunt of days to see if anyone else develops symptoms? Or is there no way to tell?

CeeJ,

I want (as always) to forward this with "I am not an expert or a vet". I'm just someone that has this disease and spend a lot of time (maybe too much time) researching and trying to understand...

Are any of your adult birds showing active symptoms? The way herpesviruses work... and I am only guessing Marek's is no different... is that the virus replicates itself in huge amounts when the bird is succumbing to symptoms (actively ill / showing signs). The virus replicates itself by tricking the bird's healthy cells into copying the Marek's Virus and the cell gets so full of the virus that it bursts, releasing the virus and causing cell death. It's why the very virulent form causes so many fast-forming lymphomatic tumors in the body.

What that all means, simply, is that when a bird shows symptoms or is actively sick from the virus, the virus is making a ton of itself and the bird is shedding a LOT of the virus.

When a bird is a carrier, but has built resistance, and is not showing symptoms (all healthy birds of an "exposed" flock), then they are still contagious, but shed the virus in much, much smaller quantities. The virus has gone into latency at this point and is piggybacking in the bird's DNA.... but is not necessarily replicating a lot of itself.

With this basic understanding, one can assume:
-- All exposed birds are shedding very small amounts of the virus from time to time.
-- All symptomatic/birds sick from active Marek's are shedding large amounts of the virus the entire time they are sick.

So, what I generally suggest... and of course, do what you are most comfortable with in the end, is that you clean any areas that have had symptomatic birds. Generally, this is a coop where they lived, because coops are the best place for their dry dander to accumulate! I like to use a shop vac with a drywall filter to suck out as much particulate as possible, then douse everything with a viruicidal cleaner (not all are!). Two that are known to kill environmental viruses, when used properly, are activated Oxine, and Odoban. I chose odoban personally because it is labeled as being able to kill herpesvirus specifically, which is what Marek's is. Then you can introduce your teenagers into an environment that has much, much less Marek's Virus in it than before.

If you currently have any birds showing symptoms, you may want to separate them and then do the cleaning as mentioned above.

I hope this helps!

 

[CeeJ]

I did just lose one older bird from the big coop, but I think it was totally unrelated. I believe she broke her neck. We had a fox visit and though they are safe, they do tend to freak out with unexpected visitors and I think in her flurry to run she flew hard into the hardware cloth.

I have a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated birds up there - mostly vaccinated. I think the oldest hens must have built some immunity. Oh! Last year I did have 2 older birds die of cocci and both had signs of tumors, but cocci was the main cause listed. So I guess they could have been mareks as well. Maybe the state ag lab in VA is not so great, I don't know. But I do know the necropsy reports said nothing about Mareks. Now, looking at everything, it may well be what killed them.

Based on my limited experience I would treat that Roo with Cored. It certainly can't hurt and those were symptoms all my cocci deaths had. Once I got the correct dose, it seems to have taken care of that problem. My last two were put down because of severe paralysis.

Btw, my vacinated birds came from MM and they have been the least problematic. They are 8 months old and the only one I've lost was the one that flew into the hardware cloth and broke her neck.

Best of luck with you chicks!!!

CeeJ, am I correct that you've lost birds from both flocks? If so, I don't see any reason not to combine the flocks. Have any of your birds been vaccinated for Marek's? You've probably said, but I don't remember.

I have a survivor who is not in great health. He seems fine, but is a little lethargic and I never see solid poops from him. But he is growing and developing. Anyone have any guesses as to if he has permanent damage from Marek's or if he is considered symptomatic? I guess there's probably no way to know, but if he does have Marek's, he's had it since late June, if not earlier. Sweet boy. I'll be sad, but not surprised, if he doesn't make it.

On a positive note - my chicks from MM ship today.

 

[Nambroth]

Thank you Nambroth!

My big coop has no birds with active symptoms. So if Move my remaining teenagers there it sounds like it wouldn't be much different than their current exposure. I will then Oxine (cos I just bought it and can't afford another chrmical) the teenager coop. Leave it empty for 2 weeks and hope no one else shows symptoms in that time. I will ise that coop as my hospital I guess. And clean it with oxine between sick birds.

But first another question. Do you know how long the incubation for symptoms takes? I just put 2 symtomatic birds down from the teenager coop and I had sick/well birds together in there as I was told it was not Mareks. Would it be better to wait x ampunt of days to see if anyone else develops symptoms? Or is there no way to tell?

Activated Oxine is just fine! Go to town with it, and let everything air out well. It's important to get the dander and dust more than anything. That's where Marek's lives in the greatest quantity.

Again, not an expert, but I understand incubation period from the moment the bird contracts the virus until it shows symptoms is a minimum of 3 weeks (some sources say 4 weeks)... but then all bets are off and there are no 'rules'. Generally it is thought that the visceral form (with lymphoma tumors and usually death) will show up within... well, 3-25 weeks of initial exposure. That's a large time frame! The other symptoms can, in theory, show up at any time later in the chicken's life, but especially if it is under stress, has a weakened immune system, or contracts another disease (which weakens the system). The latent, or 'dormant' virus in the bird's body seems to be opportunistic and shows itself when the bird's immune system or resistance gets weakened, for any reason.

So, the decision to wait or not is up to you! I think the only reason I would personally wait is if I knew the other birds hadn't been exposed... at that point I'd probably vaccinate and wait a few weeks, while crossing my fingers. I want to be clear and point out that vaccination (of unexposed, healthy, older birds) at this point is a crapshoot at best. It can't hurt but it very well might not help.

 

[BigECarter]

Based on my limited experience I would treat that Roo with Cored. It certainly can't hurt and those were symptoms all my cocci deaths had. Once I got the correct dose, it seems to have taken care of that problem.

We just finished a 5-day treatment - I haven't noticed any difference. May need to try the maintenance dose next.

E

 

[CeeJ]

quote name="Nambroth" url="/t/741957/not-an-emergency-mareks-in-the-flock/1320#post_12197085"]
Activated Oxine is just fine! Go to town with it, and let everything air out well. It's important to get the dander and dust more than anything. That's where Marek's lives in the greatest quantity.

Again, not an expert, but I understand incubation period from the moment the bird contracts the virus until it shows symptoms is a minimum of 3 weeks (some sources say 4 weeks)... but then all bets are off and there are no 'rules'. Generally it is thought that the visceral form (with lymphoma tumors and usually death) will show up within... well, 3-25 weeks of initial exposure. That's a large time frame! The other symptoms can, in theory, show up at any time later in the chicken's life, but especially if it is under stress, has a weakened immune system, or contracts another disease (which weakens the system). The latent, or 'dormant' virus in the bird's body seems to be opportunistic and shows itself when the bird's immune system or resistance gets weakened, for any reason.

So, the decision to wait or not is up to you! I think the only reason I would personally wait is if I knew the other birds hadn't been exposed... at that point I'd probably vaccinate and wait a few weeks, while crossing my fingers. I want to be clear and point out that vaccination (of unexposed, healthy, older birds) at this point is a crapshoot at best. It can't hurt but it very well might not help.
[/quote]

Thanks so much. I actually think all my birds have been exposed back to my very first ones. Gotten from a chicken swap, game birds and about 3 months about 1/2 of them died or had to be put down due to the one leg forward 1 leg back lameness thing. Sigh, it was a tough start. I thought it might be Mareks then, but didn't know about necropsies then and there is no vet here that will see chickens. I added several other smaller grouos of birds and only had the 2 cocci deaths in 2 years (well aside from predator hawks and foxes). So then I thought it couldn't be marek's as they would have show symptoms. I still have them all between 1.5-2 years old. So that tells me these birds were previously exposed and must have had some kind of immunity. I'm now also thinking quite the opposite as I was just a few days ago. Those hatching eggs I got maybe came from a breeder who didn't have it at all. That's maybe why I've lost so many. I can't figure anything else out.

I think I will move them soon as we are looking at temps near freezing at night and the bigger coop stays much warmer. Less stress. If they are not stressed by the move, lol.

Thanks for all your thoughts!!!

 

[seminolewind]

Sad that many of us have fun going to chicken swaps and shows, swapping chickens, until something comes along maybe named Marek's and we were never prepared. How bout hindsite is 20/20. We've all been there.

There is life after Marek's. Some different rules, but at least you can have chickens.

 

[Nambroth]

I have noticed some of the same questions coming up on Marek's time after time (both on this site and off) that require somewhat in-depth answers. I am writing up a somewhat in-depth article on Marek's... it will take me a while but once I am done I will post it here and would be happy to take feedback and make edits and additions to make it a good resource. I am far from an expert but if I can help even one person or help one chicken then it's worth it to me.
I will, of course, also link to the existing resources out there such as seminolewind's great FAQ.