NY chicken lover!!!!

[demerson]

I finally found all you other NY chicken herders , anyone in the Oneonta / Otego area .....

 

[vmdanielsen]

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Hey, thanks for the hugs. I need them. Thought I would have to do it myself.
No, once you have it, you have it. You vaccinate or burn the place down. Sam was from hatching eggs I got before I knew we had a problem. All 25 of the new girls are vaccinated and are fine and about half are now laying. We are getting about nine eggs from them per day. Now there are only 2 birds I have to worry about with the Mereks. Sam's sister and my one Amerecauna. Doris was over 8 months old when exposed so she should stay fine. She is such a character.

Again, thanks for the hugs. It is so frustrating when you can't make them better.

happy, sorry to hear of your dilemma. How does mareks get in a flock? With the influx of wild birds? Anyway, I'll be sending you good thoughts..
Ginny

 

[vmdanielsen]

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[happycountryhens]

Quote:
Hey, thanks for the hugs. I need them. Thought I would have to do it myself.
No, once you have it, you have it. You vaccinate or burn the place down. Sam was from hatching eggs I got before I knew we had a problem. All 25 of the new girls are vaccinated and are fine and about half are now laying. We are getting about nine eggs from them per day. Now there are only 2 birds I have to worry about with the Mereks. Sam's sister and my one Amerecauna. Doris was over 8 months old when exposed so she should stay fine. She is such a character.

Again, thanks for the hugs. It is so frustrating when you can't make them better.

happy, sorry to hear of your dilemma. How does mareks get in a flock? With the influx of wild birds? Anyway, I'll be sending you good thoughts..
Ginny

Thanks Ginny,

Wild birds can spread it from a neighboring flock or you can bring in birds that are incubating it or you can transfer it from another flock to yours if you are not careful. Not sure where our problem came from. First 2 batches of chicks we got were not vaccinated (from TSC and Breeder) but we also live near 3 other flocks of birds within a mile of our place.

The third bunch of chicks we bought were vaccinated, but never exposed to the first two batches of birds. I am glad they were vaccinated because after we lost the TSC birds we cleaned the coop and put the new girls in it. Mereks sticks around despite cleaning and disinfecting. So far so good on the vaccinated birds. Thank God.
This last girl that got symptoms was from hatching eggs we got before we knew there was a problem. We did, however, disinfect the eggs before I put them under the broody hen. Didn't want to transfer anything from one flock to another...

Anyway, all three eggs hatched and chicks did well, but now Mereks has taken two. One at 5 months old and Sam at 6 months old. Hopefully Daffy (the third pullet) will escape the disease.

Off to work now, thanks for the support from everyone.

 

[happycountryhens]

For demerson:

We are not too far away...about 90 min or so depending on where you live in that area.

 

[Henicillin]

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I'm down in the Capital District, so I'm a bit (OK, more than a bit) of a drive from you.

As it's Sunday and our automatic door is currently dead (grr - need to ship it back for a replacement), we were sort of slacking letting the beasties out of their coop. They have food, water, and plenty of room in there, but of course it's the principle of the thing to them. So, I moseyed down at about 10 AM and let them out. I checked the boxes - not a single egg. I thought, "hmm - it's a protest!" Then I noticed my Leghorn pacing back and forth and squawking with that "I have to lay and SOMEBODY is IN MY SPOT!" air about her.

Now, the coop has two rooms, one of which used to be strictly storage but is now the "playroom" where I have hay and shavings piled deep on the floor, and throw scratch so they can dig around when the weather is bad. The door between them is currently propped open, leaving a little space behind it. Barbie Girl (my Leghorn - so named because she was a platinum blonde as a chick) kept peering behind the door and muttering to herself. So, I investigated. One of the Faverolles was cuddled up back there in a nice, clean buildup of hay and shavings. I scooped her up, and found four chilly eggs beneath her in a nice little makeshift nest that wasn't there on Friday. Aha - that's where some of the weekend eggs have been hiding! Mean, horrible keeper that I am, I evicted her under protest, took the eggs, and pitched all the hay and shavings out into the main playroom. I'm sure I'm being roundly cursed in chicken language right now for breaking up Occupy Behind-Door-Space.

 

[marquisella]

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I didn't mean to imply that they present with a respiratory issue. It is passed through the respiratory system, but it presents in chicks like you stated, first one leg doesn't work, then both legs, then they slowly die. Its the tumors that eventually kill the adults. The vaccine prevents the tumors, as I understand it. And you are right, once you vaccinate, you have to keep doing it, and not bring in unvaccinated birds. They say that the vaccine doesn't cause the birds to shed, but its doubltful. I guess its one of those things that we will probably never really understand.

Thank you Sue. You are such a great resourse of information. That is what I understood too. I read the vaccine does not cause them to shed the virus, but the vaccinated birds can pick up Merek's and shed the virus without showing any signs of contracting the disease. The vaccine prevents the tumors - as you stated above.


I am so impressed you are sucessfully working on a resistant flock. How long have you been working on that? Do you vaccinate new birds coming in or how do you handle that?

I have been breeding chickens for 5 years, and the 1st 2 years had no problems, and then suddenly one year I have several birds come down with Mareks symptoms, although I didn't have them necropsied, because I didn't know about Mareks. Last year I sold some chicks and they contacted me that one was ill and she thought it was Mareks. Later she emailed me that the necropsy was negative for mareks. So, I'm wondering if it really wasn't Mareks that killed my birds, but I don't vaccinate for anything to try & build resistance.
I have to say, I have a friend that vaccinated for everything, that I sent a hen to for a breeding program that we are startinng. She came back here, about a month ago, and has not shown any symptoms of Mareks or any other disease that they say can shed from exposing non vaccinated birds with vaccinated birds...

I guess we will have to agree to disagree here about Mareks and the ability to get rid of it. From what I have read it is possible and my experience so far has proved to be correct.

 

[Aria]

We visit Oneonta often. We like Brooks for dinner. We live in Sauquoit, NY that is about
9 miles south of Utica and about 50 miles east of Syracuse. Aria

 

[rancher hicks]

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Well your done for now,

Rancher Hicks

 

[featherz]

Hey guys, remember mohawk the scalped baby chick? He's grown into a lopsided little guy and is doing fine although he's a pretty skittish roo and hasn't crowed yet that I can tell. Here is is before:

And after:

Hard to tell in the top pic, but he has a 'shock' of feathers that stick out on one side of his head.