With all due respect to participants in this thread.....would it be possible to start another different thread with the specific focus of Marek's?
It is tragic to loose a bird to the awful disease. Phage may have a point that cream legbars are more susceptable, but I think that rather the people who have cream legbars have more experience than most BYC posters, and so they will 1. Recognize it more quickly and diagnose more correctly and 2. Have pullets that are just coming to the point of lay - which is a bit stressful for the pullet, her hormones kicking in and egg-laying mechanisms starting etc...and stress is a trigger. Pullets are the most susceptible cohort of chickens from my understanding.
There is a lot of information and misinformation about Mareks... If someone were to pick up on recent conversations here, they would IMO be dis-inclined to select cream legbars for fear that they are genetically prone to Mareks. I think that they would statistically be just about like any other chicken breed.
Here are some threads
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/190815/mareks-disease/20
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/598100/rx-for-mareks-disease
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/178944/vaccinating-for-mareks-disease
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/21263/mareks-disease-diagnosis
Last fall when I lost a pullet to Marek's I read everything I could find on the disease. Among the posts was a quote from a university poultry specialist that explained it to the poster (i'm paraphrasing here) that there is a race in the chick between the lethal Mareks and the non-lethal (Turkey herpes, which is the vaccine)--and which ever virus "wins" in the chick's system determines the out come.
Mareks is everywhere...in conditions of stress, relocation, heat, drought cold, the virus can get a start in the chicken. So the vaccine isn't a magic sliver bullet to prevent the condition. And people most likely don't infect other people's chickens or chicks...but the stress of relocating may cause a problem. The same chicks that got Marek's as one poster above suggested, may never have gotten it had then never been relocated.
Although Mareks affects cream legbars, it affects all chickens. I don't want to discourage everyone who needs to voice on this subject, but I also want to come here and hear more legbar specific information. Am I mistaken in this? Thanks.
