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

[BigECarter]

Mommaw, I suggest that you start researching how to get a necropsy done, in case you lose one of your birds. It helps to know if it really is Marek's.

 

[Nambroth]

I have no new chickens, however, the lady way across from me has chickens. No other way for contamination. Perhaps the wind blew the disease across the field? I live in Suffolk, VA. This is the 2nd time I've had chickens and I've never seen this before. Thank you for responding. I am sad that if this is it there is no cure or help other than Vit b?

Shar

I'm sad to say that the wind can carry the disease across a field. The virus shed in tiny particles of chicken dander... dust... some pieces smaller than we can see, and is very easily spread.
It can also be easily carried on birds, if wild birds were to visit an infected coop, then fly onto your property.
It's also easily carried on our bodies, hair, and shoes if we come into contact with it.

There is no cure. Vitamin B complex might help birds recover if they only have the neurological form, but once the lymphomas start, there is little hope. The best thing one can do is vaccine day-olds, let them build resistance by not exposing them to the virus for at least 3 weeks, and then keeping your chickens healthy and low-stress. Like all herpesviruses, it likes to attack a weakened immune system.

 

[Mommaw]

Is this a common disease? I am so sad...

 

[Mommaw]

Thanks, il, call my vet. I appreciate your reply,..

 

[BigECarter]

You might find some resources on this page - #4 especially.
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/07/5-ways-to-prepare-for-chicken-illness.html?m=1

I was able to use my state's courier service to get my pullet to the state lab. $8 for transportation, $50 for necropsy, $25 for labs.

Be sure to refrigerate, not freeze.

My girl is doing worse. Weaker by the day. And I noticed another pullet behaving oddly (chilling in the woods when everyone else was foraging). Will have to watch her.

 

[Imachicklvr2]

A little background...
I am new to chickens, have an outdoor flock of 3 roos and 11 hens and 8 Silkies and one Cochin bantam that were fall chicks(never again) that are still in my very dusty family room. I cannot wait for Spring!

I have had my chickens for less than one year so still learning all the time and I am trying to make my way through this thread but it is quite extensive! This past month I had two hens die within two days of each other. They were both eating and drinking, but a little lethargic one night before and the next morning they were dead. They were my only two SLW and I bought them at the same time from the local feed store. The second one that died was necropsied at the University of Missouri. They did a gross necropsy and looked at the tissues. There were lymphoid tumors on her organs consistent with those seen in Marek's. Otherwise she seemed to have been in good condition.

I have been treating a Silkie for wry neck which after three months he seemed to have recovered, but sadly has relapsed since he started molting. I have also been treating another young Silkie for limping/leg weakness. I had taken him to my avian vet, had x-rays done. and been told that his leg bones looked "moth eaten" but that it was not uncommon and he recommended that I switch him to game bird food to up his protein and I also added Poly-Visol (no iron). The vet seemed to think he would recover in a couple of weeks. He got a lot worse, to the point he could not stand at all, but now can stand and walk a little but still has one curled foot, is very thin, and has the dreaded bright green poo even though he eats constantly. I am thinking it is all Marek's at this point. I am a big animal lover, my chickens are pets, and I am just heartbroken. I had bought the Silkies for my daughter to raise and show. Now this is not possible due to this stupid disease. I also have a total eight roosters, that I had planned to sell since we live in town. This is just killing me. Six of them act perfectly normal but now because of this virus I have to cull them because they are too noisy for me to keep? What the heck am I going to do? I am pretty disillusioned with chicken keeping at the moment. Thanks for listening to me vent. I know you all are frustrated too.

For the chickens that are symptomatic, has any one tried using homeopathic remedies? I have been doing a lot of reading and am going to try using curcumin to help fight the tumors and a supplement containing zinc and mulberry to boost their immune systems. The worst that can happen is that it won't work. I just wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions or experience with nutritional supplements. I am open to ideas.

In case anyone is interested in how the wry neck was treated, I will tell you that the typical treatment of vitamins and prednisone was not effective. I ended up taking him to a holistic vet who did laser therapy and acupuncture, and prescribed several herbs for him. After two sessions, he was walking upright and feeding himself! It wasn't until he began molting that he regressed again. To be honest, had I known at the time that it was Marek's, I probably would not have spent the considerable amount of money and traveled as far as I did for his treatment. It was amazing to see his recovery though. It is my hope that if I can support him nutritionally until this molt is over that he may have a chance of getting better again. I am pretty attached to the fluffy monster after all the time I have spent with him.

 

[Nambroth]

A little background...
I am new to chickens, have an outdoor flock of 3 roos and 11 hens and 8 Silkies and one Cochin bantam that were fall chicks(never again) that are still in my very dusty family room. I cannot wait for Spring!

I have had my chickens for less than one year so still learning all the time and I am trying to make my way through this thread but it is quite extensive! This past month I had two hens die within two days of each other. They were both eating and drinking, but a little lethargic one night before and the next morning they were dead. They were my only two SLW and I bought them at the same time from the local feed store. The second one that died was necropsied at the University of Missouri. They did a gross necropsy and looked at the tissues. There were lymphoid tumors on her organs consistent with those seen in Marek's. Otherwise she seemed to have been in good condition.

I have been treating a Silkie for wry neck which after three months he seemed to have recovered, but sadly has relapsed since he started molting. I have also been treating another young Silkie for limping/leg weakness. I had taken him to my avian vet, had x-rays done. and been told that his leg bones looked "moth eaten" but that it was not uncommon and he recommended that I switch him to game bird food to up his protein and I also added Poly-Visol (no iron). The vet seemed to think he would recover in a couple of weeks. He got a lot worse, to the point he could not stand at all, but now can stand and walk a little but still has one curled foot, is very thin, and has the dreaded bright green poo even though he eats constantly. I am thinking it is all Marek's at this point. I am a big animal lover, my chickens are pets, and I am just heartbroken. I had bought the Silkies for my daughter to raise and show. Now this is not possible due to this stupid disease. I also have a total eight roosters, that I had planned to sell since we live in town. This is just killing me. Six of them act perfectly normal but now because of this virus I have to cull them because they are too noisy for me to keep? What the heck am I going to do? I am pretty disillusioned with chicken keeping at the moment. Thanks for listening to me vent. I know you all are frustrated too.

For the chickens that are symptomatic, has any one tried using homeopathic remedies? I have been doing a lot of reading and am going to try using curcumin to help fight the tumors and a supplement containing zinc and mulberry to boost their immune systems. The worst that can happen is that it won't work. I just wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions or experience with nutritional supplements. I am open to ideas.

In case anyone is interested in how the wry neck was treated, I will tell you that the typical treatment of vitamins and prednisone was not effective. I ended up taking him to a holistic vet who did laser therapy and acupuncture, and prescribed several herbs for him. After two sessions, he was walking upright and feeding himself! It wasn't until he began molting that he regressed again. To be honest, had I known at the time that it was Marek's, I probably would not have spent the considerable amount of money and traveled as far as I did for his treatment. It was amazing to see his recovery though. It is my hope that if I can support him nutritionally until this molt is over that he may have a chance of getting better again. I am pretty attached to the fluffy monster after all the time I have spent with him.

Augh! This is so terrible and frustrating. I know just how you feel. I had all these grand plans of breeding and using by birds for education and so on and so forth, and now I can't do any of that, responsibly. This stupid disease!

Were any of your birds vaccinated as day-olds, do you know?

If I were in your position, I'd consider having a blood test run for Marek's. Texas A&M does it, as does the University of GA... both are PCR tests that look for the genetic marker of Marek's disease. I know that the Texas A&M test used to run around $35+overnight shipping fees (so, about $60). I just had a test run through the U of GA and it was $40 + $33 Fedex overnight as charged from my vet's office. The test is pretty accurate, and the blood can be taken safely from a live bird, so it's up to you to see if it's worth it or not. If it tests negative, you might have to consider Avian Lymphoid Leukosis in your two Wyandottes that died, as there is no way to tell the difference between this disease and Marek's when looking at gross necropsy.
I do know that U of GA also does PCR testing for ALV (lymphoid leukosis) but it would no doubt be an additional fee. When I had all the PCR tests run last year through them on my roo it was very spendy, but it gave me clear answers on what I was dealing with.
There are links in my FAQ at the end for these two labs, if you want to do testing: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq
Alternatively, if you are close to your state agricultural department/labs, you can call them and ask if they do Marek's blood tests, as that could possibly save you the shipping fee. The worst they can say is no. I don't know what other labs do this test other than the ones I mentioned.

As far as homeopathic 'treatments', yes and no. I think most of us (?) on this thread are willing to try, and have tried, about everything in case it can help. To understand what might or might not work requires an understanding of the different forms that Marek's disease takes.

Classical Marek's is the growth of lymphomas and/or neurological problems (usually partial or complete paralysis of legs, wings.. possibly sometimes neck problems too). It seems that chickens can get one without the other, or both at the same time.

When the virus generates mutations in the lymphocytes in the chicken's body, and starts the growth of aggressive lymphomas, sadly there is little hope. The chicken gets an aggressive cancer, and they die. This is what may have happened to your poor wyandottes. The lymphomas can grow slowly, or very quickly indeed, and a chicken can go from normal to dying pretty fast. I am not saying recovery from this is impossible, but I haven't yet seen it definitively.

In neurological Marek's, the virus causes lesions on the nerves themselves. The severity of the lesions varies, and this is where sometimes birds can recover (never cured, just recover). If the immune system keeps the lymphomas from forming, and the only damage is neural, the nerves CAN be repaired if the damage is not too severe, but it just takes a long time. This is where homeopathic help, well.. can help. Vitamin B complex ("super" B) is especially helpful, it seems, in nervous system health and repair, even my avian vet recommended it quite a bit. I like using nutritional yeast, as well, because it's high in B and my birds enjoy eating it (unlike the pills, which they hate even when powdered). Cold pressed coconut oil is touted as being good for nervous systems, but what I am really interested in is the abundance of medium chain fats in coconut oil, which are very good at helping with the absorption of vitamins into the system. Especially in the winter where I am in a heavy layer of snow for months, my birds don't get the 'good' fats that a quality protein in the form of insects would give them. This is especially important if you are giving a commercial feed with no fish meal in it; most commercial feeds use soy as the bulk of protein and this does not give the bird a healthy fat profile for vitamin absorption.
Edited to add: Not trying to knock on commercial feeds, I just think it's easier for a bird to get vitamin deficiencies when raised on soy-based proteins alone. This is less of a problem in climates where birds can forage year round.

In the end, since you wanted to show your birds, it might be worth it to get a more firm answer on if you have Marek's or not.

Edited to add: Also I wanted to mention that silkies, sadly, seem to get a lot of neurological issues.. they are more prone to Marek's, BUT, they also seem very prone to head injuries, especially silkies with vaulted skulls, and sometimes these injuries can look like Marek's when they cause wry neck or partial paralysis.

 

[nettifer]

im struggling with a cockerel that went off his legs 9 days ago! hes a stuuning 9mth old white leghorn, he went to bed at night no probs was running around doing what roos do the day before, then he went down falling every where ! i put him in a seperate coop but in less than 24hrs he could only lie on his side

hes still alert , eating etc, comb red , poop is green and white, he kept shaking his head and as i had a couple with swollen faces i gave them all abs, i also give him hypercurnium and baby vits, in the last couple of months i lost a 9mth old roo that went very lethargic, stopped eating and went very thin, then died, then another 9mth old roo i struggled with him for 4mths he lost an eye with a crd and i had to remove crud daily, then it healed was great then got wry neck, 6 days later died, then a 20wk old pullet lost so much weight she collapsed and died, all these i hatched myself i got the eggs off a friend so not to inter breed, but i hatched 13 and out of them i have 5 left, they have died from 5mths -9mths, they wernt injected but i didnt think that would be a problem, could it be an inhereted disease? a prob with the eggs? wrong food etc? its strange its all my hatchlings not the others

 

[seminolewind]

I know what happened to my young ones is that they got it from my own flock that had it already, at the time I didn't know what it was. Your others could possibly be resistant from age.

 

[Imachicklvr2]

Nambroth, thank you taking the time to write such a thorough reply. I read through your article as well, it is very well-written. I really wish I would have found it before I ever bought chickens. Hindsight is great, isn't it?

I am having my vet find out what we need to do to get the test for Marek's done at Texas A&M. I think I am going to have one chicken tested from each of my little groups and see what comes back. Getting to my vet is a problem for me because they are over an hour away plus I worry about cross contamination during the trip. I would like to combine all the blood samples in one shipping container to help save on costs.

To my knowledge, none of my chicks were vaccinated. I know for a fact that the ones from the breeder weren't and I would be shocked if the ones from the farm store were. I have mixed feelings about vaccinating for Marek's anyway. Unless I misunderstand, vaccinated chickens can still acquire and spread the virus, they just don't show symptoms? On one hand, I would rather know my chickens have it so I didn't spread it to others, on the other, I really wish my feathered friends did not have to suffer with this terrible disease. You just can't really win.

On the bright side, since we won't be showing any chickens, we have given several of our Silkies's "hair cuts" so they can see properly. We have a gorgeous porcelain roo that I was really looking forward to showing. He now he looks like an 80's glam rock star with his spiky long mullet.

I am going to keep treating with homeopathic remedies to boost their immune systems. I have another hen that I noticed looking a bit off this afternoon but it was very cold here today and she is starting to molt so I am hoping that is what is getting her down. I will be keeping a close eye on her though. I am hoping to have the testing done this week. I think just having confirmation of what I am dealing with will help.