You might want to look up the symptoms for Marek's disease, just in case. It's awful. You'd far rather have your hen die of worms than live with Marek's. We've lost three birds, two hens and a rooster, to what we believe was Marek's. In our case, the two hens both basically starved to death from not being willing to eat, even though we force-fed some vitamins with a bit of sugar water for calories. One had very noticeable deterioration of the eyes--we tried eye drops on her, even. The other seems to have developed an internal tumor. We tried giving them shots recommended locally--it did no good. The rooster lasted the longest. He went blind, and couldn't find the water on a hot day. Ouch. We have other chickens now; one hen and several two-month-old chicks. We'll see how they make out. No plans to let any of these chickens leave this property anytime soon.
We had bought all three birds from a poultry enthusiast whom we now suspect of being very illiterate with raising poultry. Had we known, we would have stayed far away. But these were a rare breed for our area, large birds known for being better egg-layers than most of the local chickens (many locals raise chickens for nothing more than their meat or for cock-fighting).
Live and learn.
You probably don't have Marek's. But you might want to look it up just the same. Our hens also tended to move erratically, lacking balance, and drooping their heads to the ground. Even when roosting at night, they would hang their heads, almost as if it were more comfortable for them to breathe that way.
After you learn more about Marek's, you might learn, as well, that the vaccine for it actually tends to promote it. This is because they live longer, and shed more of the virus in their dander for others to be infected. I won't have any of my birds injected with the Marek's vaccine--and to think, some are injected even before they hatch!
NOTE: We still don't have any proof of Marek's for our birds, nor for transmission of it...they say the symptoms often don't appear within the first four months, and some birds, particularly those which are adults already when exposed, may never become symptomatic. So we are in "hold your breath" mode, waiting to see what will become of our birds a few months from now. But we are highly suspicious of it, having observed the symptoms, including the eye problems, tumor growth, loss of appetite, seeming loss of sanity, loss of balance, and tendency to droop the head or sprawl awkwardly on the ground on their sides.
