The Buckeye Thread

[seminolewind]

Last month I entered Buckeye's in our county fair, my birds are healthy and they eat and give me eggs just like they should, and show no signs of symptoms of being sick. When I brought my birds back home I quarantined them for 30 days. The state vet was there pulling random checks on the poultry and testing for MG, MS and other thing. I asked him how I could find out the results from his sampling and he said to call him and he would give me the results. I sent him an email and his response was There was significant cases of MS and MG in the random sampling 1 in 5. So since my birds have been exposed to ms and mg I have to have my birds quarantined, or that is the right thing to do. This will stop me from entering in the State fair, because someone brought some unhealthy birds just to win a ribbon and and a couple of dollars. And what does this do to me a person who is trying to do right and raise healthy birds, if it is found in my flock I will have to depopulate my flock. I have over 150 birds and it has took me a year and a lot of money to get where I am at now. If a person knowingly brings a sick bird to the show he is not being fair to all who his birds infected. There should be severe penalties for this person. The only place my birds could have been exposed to any disease was at the fair. there is no one withing 5 mile of me that raises any type of poultry.

Hi. I haven't read all the posts concerning this. But there are a few things I'd like to address.

NPIP does not test for Marek's. However, Texas A&M Poultry division has instructions on how to send a blood sample for a Marek's test. Live bird. It's about $20.00 last time I looked. Medical people or vets do not test for Marek's unless requested. A vet can pull blood and put it in the proper tube and you can send it.

Marek's carriers can be healthy all their lives and you would never know that they have it. They still spew dander that infects other birds, like the person who has an exposed healthy carrier in the cage next to yours.

A flock can not be depopulated of Marek's. Once it's on your property it will infect any bird you bring and it can stay active for years. Your new birds will be exposed. You can't disinfect dirt, leaves on trees, etc.

It does not depend on the breed. If your bird has contact with the dust or dander of a Marek's carrier, they will carry it even if they don't get sick, or they are vaccinated. For the life of the exposed carrier.

You sound like a conscience person and strive for doing the right thing. If a breeder want to show or sell birds or chicks, they can get or give Marek's virus. It's been around for over 100 years.

There are ways to sell breeder birds. You can sell hatching eggs. You can have a partner hatch and sell chicks from their chicken free home.

You can not assume your healthy birds do not carry it, or assume the chicken in the next cage will not give your chickens Marek's. You cannot quarantine for any period of time to get rid of it.

The chances are high that a person at a show has no idea his birds are carriers of Marek's. Vaccination prevents the deadly symptoms, but not the virus. Vaccination can also mask if a chicken has it.

I do not judge people for not having the knowledge. All I do is try to educate anyone who will listen. I had a closed flock. I brought home one pullet from a breeder and she infected my flock and it was 18 months later that I discovered the random deaths I had every few months was Marek's. Until I hatched 8 chicks who were 6 weeks old and one by one they got paralysis and were wasted, and some lost their depth perception and could not aim and pick up food.

Please read Nambroth's Big Marek's FAQ link at the bottom of my post. She was very thorough.

 

[seminolewind]

There is no bird in the US that has not been exposed to Mareks...and that happens well before any show or swap meet. Again it is everywhere. Coryza is not everywhere and is usually the sign of poor management. Yes, the symptoms can be masked, but it will still infect. Since you can't do anything about Mareks and it is everywhere and all birds have been already exposed, it is no where near the problem of Coryza. This is based on science and my personal long time experience with poultry. I lived on a broiler farm when i was a kid. Comparing commercial operations where they are housed under less than ideal conditions and requires complete biosecurity, is not a valid comparison. In addition they are medicated and are not meant to live a very long time. It is entirely different than back yard flocks.

There is no question that we need to be careful, but we also need to be informed and there is currently a ton of misinformation about everything poultry online.

Chicken diseases that kill lots of birds don't originate in backyard flocks, they originate in commercial poultry operations. The huge outbreaks of Exotic Newcastle and AI we have had in Calif have all started on Commercial operations. The result was the killing of many back yard flocks that were within the kill zone of these commercial birds. We are talking about millions of birds put down. Don't worry about the shows, worry about how close a commercial operation is to your farm.

Off to a show.

Walt

There are many birds not exposed to Marek's. There are many chickens who are exposed and get the deadly symptoms or give it to others. If everyone vaccinated their day old chicks, at least 90+ percent would not die.

It used to be a serious problem for production companies and broiler farms. Times have changed with the hundreds of thousands of back yard chicken owners. While these companies got things under superb control, back yard practices have now inherited the epidemic. It has nothing to do with unclean or sloppy back yarders.

Prior to vaccines , these companies were losing up to 60% of their chickens to Marek's. The vaccine was invented but it was not enough. They had to practice vaccination, all in all out (not mixing ages or adding to established flocks), and disinfecting between batches. Their losses today are around 1%. Meanwhile , back yard flocks have not done the right things, thinking it was only a production company problem. They did not vaccinate. They brought chickens home and added to their flocks at any time. And cleaned but could not disinfect all of their chicken area. People don't want to admit that the problem is greater than the diseases you can see the symptoms and take care of it. Problem is Marek's can kill, or it can live happily inside a chicken and just expose every other chicken in contact.

Marek's did not start in back yards. It started with carriers who brought it into their flocks. If you think every chicken has Marek's, wait until you get chicks that grow to 4-20 weeks old (common not a rule) that get paralysis, waste, get gray eye , or symptoms that lead to death and are unexplained.

 

[Blueface]

I'll change the subject. (I'm sure it will pop back up)  

There is a show in Lucasville this weekend.  The Southern Ohio Poultry Association always puts on a good show in the spring and fall.  There will be quality buckeye represented, along with other nice fowl and nice always knowledgeable people too.  Sadly I won't be able to make it, but if you are in the area or looking for something to do, stop on out and say hi.  And good luck to Blueface Joe and the rest of the Shumaker clan along with Jeff Lay and a few others I am forgetting.

I won the American class today Josh...Nice show!!! Great birds; there were some exceptional Rocks and Wyandottes present today!!

That's 4 for 6 this year 2 Grand Champion LF, 1 Reserve Super Grand Champion of Show and 1 Reserve Grand Champion Large Fowl but the fall is still young

 

[seminolewind]

Bluface and others here. I am sure that you run clean operations and are conscientious about the health of your chickens. I'm sure you all have morals and want to protect your chickens. However there is a bunch of false information out there. There are plenty of people out there who have the same middle name; "except for me".

Sumi brings up some important points. Is it Buckeye people in general or just a few Buckeye owners who chuckle or blow off someone who hates to see sadness and loss of life that can be prevented?

 

[Blueface]

Bluface and others here.  I am sure that you run clean operations and are conscientious about the health of your chickens.  I'm sure you all have morals and want to protect your chickens.  However there is a bunch of false information out there.  There are plenty of people out there who have the same middle name; "except for me".

Sumi brings up some important points.  Is it Buckeye people in general or just a few Buckeye owners  who chuckle or blow off someone who hates to see sadness and loss of life that can be prevented? 

My operation is one of the cleanest! I do have an excellent set of morals (some may debate that). I didn't bring the topic up to smear (so many may debate that one), it is a valid concern! It saddens me that people can be that callous! Hypothetically speaking....lets say Marek's is everywhere....but then you potentially introduce birds to a DIRECT source(s).,...how can that be justified?
I don't know what's more callous....defending such an act or trying to switch the topic and suggest that another successful breeder is infected with a different disease?
As a matter of fact...this may be just a coincidence....but a bird was removed today from the show because it was lethargic, and started experiencing loss of control when walking and then experienced the inability to stand!! Stress triggers Marek's! Who knows if that was the case here but it was strange it happened after a conversation of this nature.

 

[Bethel3330]

Yikes! That's sad.
Congrats to you again. Wish I were there!

 

[JoshU]

Bluface and others here. I am sure that you run clean operations and are conscientious about the health of your chickens. I'm sure you all have morals and want to protect your chickens. However there is a bunch of false information out there. There are plenty of people out there who have the same middle name; "except for me".

Sumi brings up some important points. Is it Buckeye people in general or just a few Buckeye owners who chuckle or blow off someone who hates to see sadness and loss of life that can be prevented?

I don't think anyone at all gets a chuckle out of sadness and loss of life. At the same time it is clearly not all buckeye owners who would blow off an epidemic of mareks. I see the differences of opinion here from vets, to long time breeders and fanciers, to small backyard pet chicken owners. The only thing for certain is that it is scary to think your whole flock could be wiped out. Especially since there are multiple strains and even the vaccines are not guaranteed to work for all the strains, nor do they guarantee no loss of life or sadness.

 

[Buckeyeidaho]

Hi Buckeye experts!

Should I expect to see distinct male Buckeye sex differentiation in 6.5 mo straight-run chicks? I see absolutely no male secondary sex characteristics: pointed saddle and hackle feathers, larger bright red comb and wattles, crowing, dominance behavior, larger size. But given there is somewhere over 1:160,000 statistical odds I would have only 14 hens in a straight-run, the most likely conclusions are 1) I'm clueless ( most probable) or 2) (less probably) I received a sexed and not the "straight-run" I ordered. The one chick I was sure was male was the first and best layer to date, so maybe the most likely conclusion is 1)...

I so love this breed...incredibly docile and friendly ( we calmly banded 14 in less than 10 minutes as they gathered happily chatting at our feet in an open field). They love to spread their wings to be scratched and have their necks massaged... I thought only cats could "purr". Visitors to our farm are greeted by a choir of happy, curious chickens as they open their car door... who then proceed to escort them to our front door!

Thanks for any insight/advice you can provide

 

[Blueface]

At 6.5 months, the males would be breeding the females and crowing. Very easy to tell the difference. Plus, they all should be laying now.

 

[JoshU]

Yes you should see definite differences. Tails and hackles. And like Joe said, laying by most of the females by now. Post a few pics of the group. We will be able to tell you.