MossyMountains
In the Brooder
- Jun 12, 2021
- 3
- 4
- 11
Hi folks . . .
I just lost a very sweet three month old hen. She was rescued from traffic about a month ago and had a slight limp and a droop to one wing. She also had missing feathers on her back, but it seemed more like what you'd see when a rooster mates with the hens. This was within city limits and she wasn't sexually mature, so my guess was that she was bullied by the other chickens and that's why her feathers were missing.
I didn't mingle her with our flock and instead kept her indoors for two weeks, with solo outings in one area of our property that's a good distance from our flock. She made almost a complete recovery and was barely limping, and so gradually I began to introduce her to our chickens. She was doing great for maybe a week, when one day I noticed she had trouble standing steady. One leg was strong, but the other one couldn't bear much weight.
It didn't occur to me that she could be sick. Her appetite was healthy and she exhibited no symptoms. Honestly I wasn't even considering the possibility that she could have Marek's because the limp in her leg didn't resemble paralysis. To keep her company, I adopted three week-old chicks. One day I found them pulling her feathers out and standing on her back. I could no longer leave her alone with them or the flock.
She was such a darling chicken and would always come to me. My assumption was that she had a very gentle disposition and was an easy target. But about two weeks after the chicks joined our family, she began losing weight. I treat my flock with natural remedies and this was the first time I struggled to help a chicken recover. My treatments sustained her for a while and gave me hope that she'd recover, but the weight loss only worsened.
For some reason I wasn't connecting the dots when I began to notice her droppings. They were milky white and green and apparently a common symptom of Marek's disease. Only in her last few days did I do some research on this. For everything I've learned about chickens, and the recovery one of my roosters made from a severe coyote attack, I just wasn't seeing her symptoms as indicative of a disease.
Because of the extreme heat and our refrigerator not working properly, I didn't send her to UC Davis for testing when she died two days ago. Meanwhile, I've been keeping an eye on the flock. Sadly, yesterday I could hear my rooster making some congested sounds when he was crowing. Everyone seemed fine, but tonight just after they went to roost, I walked inside their house and heard at least three of them sounding very congested.
This does seem like a symptom of gapeworm and not Marek's, and the chicken that died was never congested. But the timing is curious. The symptoms are exactly like what someone described in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/year-old-chickens-with-congestion.1452814/
I'm going to treat them as if they're all suffering from gapeworm, but I'd like to know if anyone has experienced congestion as a symptom of Marek's before. If one of them dies, I'll be sure to send them in for testing, but hopefully this is just an odd coincidence and not something untreatable that's spreading through my flock.
As for my dear little chicken that died, I think a case can be made for Marek's. In the absence of testing, though, it's hard to say for sure, unless I start seeing the same symptoms in the others and I lose more.
Thanks for reading this.
I just lost a very sweet three month old hen. She was rescued from traffic about a month ago and had a slight limp and a droop to one wing. She also had missing feathers on her back, but it seemed more like what you'd see when a rooster mates with the hens. This was within city limits and she wasn't sexually mature, so my guess was that she was bullied by the other chickens and that's why her feathers were missing.
I didn't mingle her with our flock and instead kept her indoors for two weeks, with solo outings in one area of our property that's a good distance from our flock. She made almost a complete recovery and was barely limping, and so gradually I began to introduce her to our chickens. She was doing great for maybe a week, when one day I noticed she had trouble standing steady. One leg was strong, but the other one couldn't bear much weight.
It didn't occur to me that she could be sick. Her appetite was healthy and she exhibited no symptoms. Honestly I wasn't even considering the possibility that she could have Marek's because the limp in her leg didn't resemble paralysis. To keep her company, I adopted three week-old chicks. One day I found them pulling her feathers out and standing on her back. I could no longer leave her alone with them or the flock.
She was such a darling chicken and would always come to me. My assumption was that she had a very gentle disposition and was an easy target. But about two weeks after the chicks joined our family, she began losing weight. I treat my flock with natural remedies and this was the first time I struggled to help a chicken recover. My treatments sustained her for a while and gave me hope that she'd recover, but the weight loss only worsened.
For some reason I wasn't connecting the dots when I began to notice her droppings. They were milky white and green and apparently a common symptom of Marek's disease. Only in her last few days did I do some research on this. For everything I've learned about chickens, and the recovery one of my roosters made from a severe coyote attack, I just wasn't seeing her symptoms as indicative of a disease.
Because of the extreme heat and our refrigerator not working properly, I didn't send her to UC Davis for testing when she died two days ago. Meanwhile, I've been keeping an eye on the flock. Sadly, yesterday I could hear my rooster making some congested sounds when he was crowing. Everyone seemed fine, but tonight just after they went to roost, I walked inside their house and heard at least three of them sounding very congested.
This does seem like a symptom of gapeworm and not Marek's, and the chicken that died was never congested. But the timing is curious. The symptoms are exactly like what someone described in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/year-old-chickens-with-congestion.1452814/
I'm going to treat them as if they're all suffering from gapeworm, but I'd like to know if anyone has experienced congestion as a symptom of Marek's before. If one of them dies, I'll be sure to send them in for testing, but hopefully this is just an odd coincidence and not something untreatable that's spreading through my flock.
As for my dear little chicken that died, I think a case can be made for Marek's. In the absence of testing, though, it's hard to say for sure, unless I start seeing the same symptoms in the others and I lose more.
Thanks for reading this.
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