possible mareks? please help!

[littleredhen77]

my little red hen hasnt gotten any better, or worse. shes still smaller than the others and her face isnt getting red as fast as the others either. she still eats a healthy amount, and gets to where she wants to be but then sits in one spot most of the day. her toes are all curled twords eachother. ive been giving them fresh produce almost every day and rooster booster in their water but alas, nothing helps. at least shes still with me, and spoiled rotten! ill try to post a picture later on.

i wish you luck with yours! they may not get better but they can still have a happy life

 

[littleredhen77]

here is little red today..


when she is laying down she often has her legs a little off to the side instead of directly under her. with her toes curled under like this



when she stands up, they uncurl a little but theyre still sideways



eating pumpkin


she likes to hang out under the ramp. this picture isnt good for a size comparison due to the angle, but you can see the difference in face coloring, they are both the same age. the other one is a bit blurry because these girls do not sit still for anyone lol

 

[brummie]

Thanks for the update. You seem to be doing a good job of looking afer her. Fortunatley non of my ones that are limping and sitting aroudn most of the time are showing any curled toes yet. I think I'll hang on to them for a little longer also to see if they recover or atleast see if I can somehow confirm if it is mareks or not.

 

[clmontessori]

Ours is still the same. I feel like it's definitely Marek's disease but my wife disagrees because none of the others have it. We sent s video of her to the state veterinarian and he replied that she was definitely showing signs of Marek's. Unfortunately you can't really have them tested for it unless you cull them. We still have her but she is slowly getting worse. Not eating as much. It's very sad. She just lays there all day. We have her in a dog cage as her coop, as they say you need to remove her from the others. But the virus can live off of them for 6 months to a year. So the entire backyard and their coop have it. So there's really nothing you can do to protect the others. They recommend culling them if they have it but we just don't have it in us to do that. We decided the extra work was worth it as she has the biggest personality of the 5.

 

[brummie]

Something interesting I came across from Mercks Manuals:

"Marek's disease is one of the most ubiquitous avian infections; it is identified in chicken flocks worldwide. Every flock, except for those maintained under strict pathogen-free conditions, is presumed to be infected."

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/poultry/neoplasms/mareks_disease_in_poultry.html

I guess that means there is no point in culling the entire flock (unless you have the million dollar bio security setup), especially considering both meat and eggs are absolutley fine to eat. Even if we were to restart the flock we would most likely have mareks back within a couple of years.

If your birds are pets and you want to care for them for them then thats great. For me however, I've always focused on utility so I would cull the most susceptible (ones showing the most signs) and breed from only the most resistent to get a more resistent flock. This being the case I don't think I should be too worried or stressed out about mareks in the flock.