predictable and depressing update today on the 15 week old remaining hatchmate of the cream legbar i lost two weeks ago to marek's. she was looking great until sunday, two weeks to the day the first one presented with symptoms. sunday she was quiet and seemed depressed, but nothing else i could put my finger on. monday morning, she seemed to be struggling to breathe.... when she walked around too much, she would open mouth breathe and at one point even started gaping. after what we had just been through with the first one, i took her to the avian vet first thing monday. positive fecal for roundworms. positive sputum for bacteria. wanting to decide whether to euthanize (for suspected marek's affecting lungs) but not wanting to euthanize if it wasn't that, we x-rayed. yes, i'm the lady who x-rays a chicken. i hear what i'm saying but whatever, they're pets for me. anyway, x-ray was negative. YAY! great news. started antibiotic for the bacterial pneumonia, apparently started by the juvenile stage of roundworms that were compromising the lungs. did injectable dewormer for the rounds. all of this was at vet. vet monitored chicken overnight, gave her a 60/40% chance of making it if the drugs could start helping before breathing became more compromised. guess what? not fast enough. her breathing never improved, and she died yesterday (tuesday) afternoon, still at the vet. and it's an avian specialist, she was getting excellent care, so that was not the problem. just couldn't get enough air. sooooo, never did have a marek's diagnosis on this one. passed on the necropsy since the sister had already tested positive. but even the vet said that it was a strong possibility the marek's virus set the bird up for very low resistance to the rounds and subsequent lung infection. sigh. might have to go get myself a turkey, too. geez. no sign of anything with the remaining (and much older) flock members.