The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[1muttsfan]

Well of course you have to hatch, if only to see for yourself what they look like

 

[1muttsfan]

That was $20 well spent, the report was concise and extensive. Looks like she had a mild worm infestation as well.

I would suggest that vaccination might be worth considering. Now that you already know you have Mareks, vaccination won't be hiding anything. And even though, just like with most vaccines, it won't prevent infection, vaccinating day-old chicks should reduce both mortality (deaths) of young pullets (they sadly usually died just around the time they come into lay) and morbidity (birds that don't die but are less productive once they mature). This would allow you to still keep and enjoy your chickens without sad and frustrating losses.

Remember that the only vaccine available for backyard flocks is the turkey virus one. This one stimulates some cross protection, but would be unlikely to result in mutation of the chicken virus. It would work pretty much the same way as keeping turkeys can give chickens some protection, but more effectively.

 

[speckledhen]

I agree about the vaccination if you already have Marek's in the flock and choose to keep going with them since, after all, in that circumstance, it would not be hiding anything, as Mary said. I just don't know what I'd do. I am the type of person who probably could not enjoy keeping birds I knew were carriers of anything. I'd just eventually let them die off and not get them again.

Mary, guineas don't get those same vaccinations, do they? Doc Brown used to joke that you couldn't kill a guinea with a .22, but they are fairly hardy birds. I've never heard of them being vaccinated for Marek's, but could have missed that.

 

[speckledhen]

Okay. Warming up.

And, once again, caught on game camera-this is Wynette, my beautiful, big girl. She's 7 years old on April 6, with Druscilla only a few months after her.
Boy, that date is really wrong! Have to fix that.

 

[getaclue]

h2o, first off, let me say I'm sorry for the loss of your bird. I'm sorry the result was Mareks in your bird. Please, don't let that information bother you too much, and don't take it as a reflection on your flock keeping methods.

On one of the threads I frequent, 2 people have confirmed Mareks in their flocks. They've closed their flocks, and have carried on. They've done surprisingly well. In one flock, the initial devastation took a serious toll as it swept through the flock, but then subsided, and it's not as common for the to experience a loss now. Hatched chicks, seem to do pretty good so far. IF they continue breeding the way they're doing, their flock should attain partial to total resistance within the next generation, or two at least to the strain they're exposed to.

With the second person, it went through their flock much more slowly. They experience losses here, and there, but nothing major. Possibly a different strain. They too closed their flock, and have carried on. The chicks seem to do fine in that flock too.

Both flocks experience a loss once in a great while, but nothing like when it hit the first flock I mentioned. Both people are very strict with their biosecurity practices, not wanting to contaminate anyone else's flock. They still enjoy their chickens, and are saddened when the suffer the occasional loss.

Once they got over the initial devastation, they realized that starting over is not necessarily a viable option either, since soil decontamination can take years, and be expensive. There's no guarantee against contamination, or recontamination when going that route either. Another problem, they don't know the source of their contamination. Was it a wild bird that flew from a nearby contaminated farm? Was it from a tiny piece of dander they got from looking at vaccinated chicks at the feed store? They don't know where it came from.

The reason I'm totally against the vaccine is, as I stated before, it's a misnomer to call it a vaccine. We associate the word vaccine with protection against something. The Mareks vaccine offers very little, to no protection at all. It gives a completely false sense of security, and has been blamed for the spread, and mutation of the original strain of Mareks virus into the 5 additional strains we have now. It's actually better at this point, to try breeding for resistance, instead of vaccinating. At least they would eventually develop some immunity to the type of Mareks they've been exposed to, and possibly have some immunity to the other strains as well.

 

[getaclue]

It's about time you got the bator cranked up, and ready. What took you so long? I'm getting ready to fire mine up too.

 

[h2oratt]

I'm sorry, Kara. I've had only two completely sudden deaths of fairly young birds, one was Atlas's sister, Robin, and the other was Suede and Caroline's daughter, Glenda, who was two years old. I think Robin choked (she always gagged on scratch and I heard her doing it a few minutes before I found her) and I think Glenda's was an accident at roost time, but not really sure.



I've always thought of both Silkies and Polish as weak birds in general. Not sure that has any bearing on this, of course. My issue with a vaccine is that, because it does not prevent the disease, but only masks it, how would someone know they have Mareks birds? Seems logical to me that you could have carriers and be unaware, at least for a very long time.
The lab report still bugs me. The line here: And basically, this is the same as the last paper you had. I don't see anything about tissue testing on the report. They are going on visual findings and general age and condition and absence of anything to disprove Mareks, etc, it seems to me, unless I am just not seeing it.

I'm really sorry, Julie.

ETA: Oh, I did see this, so this says they did look at tissues, I was incorrect:

Thank you, to tell you the truth I am kinda of glad. I am glad I didn’t spend a lot of money on birds and then have this happen.
I need to call them and ask if if their findings rule out the other disease that looks very similar. I assume it does from this report.
The leukocyte sounding one.

 

[h2oratt]

h2o, first off, let me say I'm sorry for the loss of your bird. I'm sorry the result was Mareks in your bird. Please, don't let that information bother you too much, and don't take it as a reflection on your flock keeping methods.

On one of the threads I frequent, 2 people have confirmed Mareks in their flocks. They've closed their flocks, and have carried on. They've done surprisingly well. In one flock, the initial devastation took a serious toll as it swept through the flock, but then subsided, and it's not as common for the to experience a loss now. Hatched chicks, seem to do pretty good so far. IF they continue breeding the way they're doing, their flock should attain partial to total resistance within the next generation, or two at least to the strain they're exposed to.

With the second person, it went through their flock much more slowly. They experience losses here, and there, but nothing major. Possibly a different strain. They too closed their flock, and have carried on. The chicks seem to do fine in that flock too.

Both flocks experience a loss once in a great while, but nothing like when it hit the first flock I mentioned. Both people are very strict with their biosecurity practices, not wanting to contaminate anyone else's flock. They still enjoy their chickens, and are saddened when the suffer the occasional loss.

Once they got over the initial devastation, they realized that starting over is not necessarily a viable option either, since soil decontamination can take years, and be expensive. There's no guarantee against contamination, or recontamination when going that route either. Another problem, they don't know the source of their contamination. Was it a wild bird that flew from a nearby contaminated farm? Was it from a tiny piece of dander they got from looking at vaccinated chicks at the feed store? They don't know where it came from.

The reason I'm totally against the vaccine is, as I stated before, it's a misnomer to call it a vaccine. We associate the word vaccine with protection against something. The Mareks vaccine offers very little, to no protection at all. It gives a completely false sense of security, and has been blamed for the spread, and mutation of the original strain of Mareks virus into the 5 additional strains we have now. It's actually better at this point, to try breeding for resistance, instead of vaccinating. At least they would eventually develop some immunity to the type of Mareks they've been exposed to, and possibly have some immunity to the other strains as well.

thank you,
My friend in Virginia for birds from a hatchery and got them vaccinated for mareks. POlish and speckled Sussex. They are all dying off one by one from what she assumes is mareks.

I looked for the vaccine online. It is hard to find. I found three places. It is expensive and needs to be shipped cold two day mail. I don’t think there is any point in vaccinating.
Luckily my chickens are not my pets. I am sad but I don’t get super attached. We will carry on and see what happens. Luckily you can still eat the eggs and meat.

I agree that it was 20 dollars well spent. I am glad they offer this service in my state. I thought it was a very through necropsy. I don’t know a lot of people that will do it so if your bird dies how do you what you have.

 

[speckledhen]

Thank you, to tell you the truth I am kinda of glad. I am glad I didn’t spend a lot of money on birds and then have this happen.
I need to call them and ask if if their findings rule out the other disease that looks very similar. I assume it does from this report.
The leukocyte sounding one.

Lymphoid Leukosis. I'd say that was not a probability with yours because of her age. Usually LL is with older birds, but I guess anything is possible.

I hate that so many are buying the consumer vaccine and thinking they are preventing Mareks. Even the other one, the only one that has any "so-called" efficacy is the one that must be stored at -170* or something like that, the ones the hatcheries use on day-olds. You can't ship that and have it stay the way it's supposed to because even cold is not -170*. The University of Ky vet that talked to Ladyhawk about something or other said that the consumer Marek's vaccine is actually useless, a waste of money. Neither prevent the disease, nothing can do that other than not contracting it in the first place. Mareks is one reason that, when checking out properties for sale, I skip over any property that has had chickens on it, which is usually the opposite reaction of a real estate shopper with chickens...."oh, look! It already has a chicken coop!". To me, that's bad news.

Even saying all this, everyone must make his/her own decisions, but they really need to know all the facts in doing so. There are too many people making decisions based on misinformation about Marek's, IMO.

 

[speckledhen]

Eggs are set. 21 Brahmas, 6 Jill/Hector. No guessing which BR male sired these! I still have not found an example of a Blue Dark Brahma rooster! If anyone of you sees one, let me know! Any of B.J.'s that colored as Dark rather than Partridge could be Blue Darks since Bash is a Blue Partridge instead of a straight Partridge. I really want to see what one looks like!

In other news, my last Delaware hen, Georgie, was in a nest this morning when we went into the barn,which is unusual. She didn't stand up when I walked into her pen,which was also odd, and her eyes looked very tired. When I got to the nest, she did slowly stand up, so I helped her down. She is extremely bloated and she wheezed/groaned when I lifted her. Georgie turned 9 yrs old last month. She would be the end of an era, for sure. She's Atlas's great aunt, always a big, round beautiful hen.