On the mend, but still questions: UPDATE, 20 week old banty wormy as heck,

[Eggcessive]

I have been reading where green diarrhea is a sign of Mareks disease, although is it is also a sign of wasting in other diseases, too.

Marek's Disease

Synonyms: acute leukosis, neural leukosis, range paralysis, gray eye (when eye affected)
Species affected: Chickens between 12 to 25 weeks of age are most commonly clinically affected. Occasionally pheasants, quail, game fowl and turkeys can be infected.
Clinical signs: Marek's disease is a type of avian cancer. Tumors in nerves cause lameness and paralysis. Tumors can occur in the eyes and cause irregularly shaped pupils and blindness. Tumors of the liver, kidney, spleen, gonads, pancreas, proventriculus, lungs, muscles, and skin can cause incoordination, unthriftiness, paleness, weak labored breathing, and enlarged feather follicles. In terminal stages, the birds are emaciated with pale, scaly combs and greenish diarrhea (see Table 2).

 

[lalaland]

yes sounds like it could be on target, but I don't think I have enough to say it is, almost seems more likely it isn't, given the health of the rest of the flock.

I like this info sheet, it simplifies it. SO if she has mareks, then it is the last form, visceral with internal tumors.

http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf


mornings are really hard for her. movement appears difficult, and it takes a half hour before she will stand up and peck at food and drink water. good droppings. I haven't weighed her yet and I haven't given her the pasty gruel. to be honest, I watched her the first 20 minutes and thought I should cull her, she is miserable. Now, she is up, pecking at food and eating some....

have to think this through. If I cull her, it would be great to have a diagnosis because if it is mareks, then I have to worry about the rest of the flock, the adults were vaccinated, but the chicks hatched for me this spring weren't. first time ever I didn't vacinate for mareks.

i think the last necropsy I had done at the university was about $150.

thank goodness the rest of the flock is ot showing any symptoms, and this after 3 weeks. I do have some unhappy molting hens, but that is normal.

 

[casportpony]

Poultry necropsies in MN are $75.25 ((plus a $10 fee) according to this website:
http://www.vdl.umn.edu/ourservices/necropsy/home.html

-Kathy

 

[delisha]

yes sounds like it could be on target, but I don't think I have enough to say it is, almost seems more likely it isn't, given the health of the rest of the flock.

I like this info sheet, it simplifies it. SO if she has mareks, then it is the last form, visceral with internal tumors.

http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf


mornings are really hard for her. movement appears difficult, and it takes a half hour before she will stand up and peck at food and drink water. good droppings. I haven't weighed her yet and I haven't given her the pasty gruel. to be honest, I watched her the first 20 minutes and thought I should cull her, she is miserable. Now, she is up, pecking at food and eating some....

have to think this through. If I cull her, it would be great to have a diagnosis because if it is mareks, then I have to worry about the rest of the flock, the adults were vaccinated, but the chicks hatched for me this spring weren't. first time ever I didn't vacinate for mareks.

i think the last necropsy I had done at the university was about $150.

thank goodness the rest of the flock is ot showing any symptoms, and this after 3 weeks. I do have some unhappy molting hens, but that is normal.

It is not mareks..
This bird would have recovered or been dead by now. She has been ill since she was a chick and if she had mareks she would have shed the disease to the rest of the flock. It is in dander and dust if the feathers. She would have had more sick birds. It is nasty and spreads quickly. Her eyes, skin, organs and feathers would be hit first. I am confident this bird is free from any type of disease. Her hygienic and health practices for her flock are stellar. Even birds inoculated from mereks get mereks and pass it on to other birds, they just do not show symptoms.
Rest assured..this is the bird.

 

[casportpony]

The Marek's strain here at my place doesn't spread that quick, I only get a dead one once every few months, but others, like seminolewind and haunted55 have lost many to it. So just because none of the others are showing symptoms does not mean that it's not Marek's... I'm not saying that it is, just that it could be.

-Kathy

 

[Suzierd]

It is not mareks..
This bird would have recovered or been dead by now. She has been ill since she was a chick and if she had mareks she would have shed  the disease to the rest of the flock. It is in dander and dust if the feathers.  She would have had more sick birds. It is nasty and spreads quickly. Her eyes, skin, organs and feathers would be hit first. I am confident this bird is free from any type of disease. Her hygienic and health practices for her flock are stellar. Even birds inoculated from mereks get mereks and pass it on to other birds, they just do not show symptoms.
Rest assured..this is the bird.

X2

 

[casportpony]

FYI, I have *many* that appear to have just the ocular form and just one in the advanced stages of the neural form. Of course there is no way to tell if they have the visceral form without doing a necropsy.

The four forms are:

• Visceral
• Ocular
• Neural
• Cutaneous

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Source: http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
Marek’s Disease
Marek’s Disease is a viral tumor-causing disease of chickens. Marek’s is distributed worldwide and is so common that if you have birds, they have been exposed to Marek’s, regardless of whether they show symptoms or not. There are 4 different forms of Marek’s:
Marek’s Disease is caused by 6 different herpes viruses that primarily affect young birds. The virus concentrates in feather follicles and is shed in dander. Marek’s disease-causing virus particles can survive for months in chicken-house dust and litter.
Transmission
Marek’s is highly contagious and spreads by bird-to-bird contact, by contact with infected dust and dander, and by darkling beetles and mealworms that live in the chicken house, although the virus has no affect on the beetles or mealworms.
Other organisms common to chicken houses such as free-living mites, mosquitoes and coccidia do not transmit the disease. Chickens are most commonly exposed to Marek’s by contact with residual dust and dander in previously infected houses, by aerosol (air) contamination from a nearby house, or by virus particles carried by personnel and equipment. The virus doesn’t survive the incubation process well and is not spread by hatching eggs. Immune transfer from the hen to the chick provides some protection to the

chick for the first few days of life.
Signs
The signs and symptoms of Marek’s Disease vary depending on the form of disease present.

Cutaneous form:
Enlarged reddened feather follicles and white bumps on the skin that form
brown crusty scabs.

Neural form:
Characterized by one, all, or none of the following symptoms -
• Progressive paralysis, usually of the leg or wing, a typical leg-paralysis victim will have one leg extended forward and one leg extended back. A swelling of the sciatic nerve is the cause.
• Weight loss
• Labored breathing
• Diarrhea
• Starvation and death due to an inability to reach feed and water and to trampling by penmates.
• Cutaneous (skin form)
• Neural (nerve form)
• Ocular (eye form)
• Visceral (internal-organ form)

Ocular form:
• Gray eye color
• Misshapen iris
• Weight loss
• Blindness
• Death

Visceral Form:
Tumors on internal organs including heart, ovary, liver and lung.

Morbidity and mortality
Morbidity (number affected) in unvaccinated flocks can reach 60 percent. Vaccinated flocks fare better with less than 5 percent affected. Mortality is high in affected birds reaching nearly 100 percent over a 10-week period. Pullets are more likely to be affected than cockerels.

Diagnosis
Diagnosis is derived from the flock history, symptoms and necropsy findings.

Prevention
• Breed for resistance.
• Good sanitation and ventilation.
• Brood chicks separately from adults until 5 months of age.
• Keep turkeys with chickens (this may help the chickens with Marek’s, but can lead to black
head disease in the turkeys).
• Vaccinate all chicks at 1 day old; keep chicks from exposure until immunity has developed, about 7 days.

Treatment
None. Cull affected birds. Some birds develop temporary paralysis that disappears after 1-2 days. They appear to return to normal, but frequently die from internal tumors a short time later.
For more fact sheets in the small flock poultry management series return to:
http://extension.unh.edu/Agric/AGDLEP.htm
For more information in
New Hampshire:
Family, Home & Garden Education Center
Toll free Info Line in New Hampshire
1-877-398-4769
M-F • 9 AM - 2 PM
W • 5 - 7:30 PM
or visit:
http://extension.unh.edu/FHGEC/FHGEC.htm
For more information in
Connecticut:
Home & Garden Education Center
Toll free Info Line in Connecticut
1-877-486-6271
M-F • 8 AM - 5 PM
or visit:
http://www.ladybug.uconn.edu/index.html
Fact sheet by Tina Savage, UNH Cooperative Extension Agricultural Resources Educator in collaboration with
Dr. Michael J. Darre, Professor of Animal Science and Extension Poultry Specialist, University of Connecticut, 8/08
Visit our website: extension.unh.edu
UNH Cooperative Extension programs and policies are consistent with pertinent Federal and State laws and regulations
on non-discrimination regarding age, color, handicap, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veterans status.

 

[casportpony]

Some with Marek's can linger for months as long as they have access to food and water.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

If this were my chicken I would tube feed it and see if the poop returned to normal. After a day or two of tube feeding the poop should change color and this could rule out starvation as the cause for the green color. Tubing is very easy and very safe and I available to help by phone to anyone that's willing to get the supplies.

-Kathy