To vaccinate for mareks or not?

[PioneerChicks]

You get a bunch of chickens, expose them to Mareks, and cull the ones that get sick. Or, if they all get sick, raise some offspring from the ones that were least affected. (The ones that didn't die.)

In each generation, you want to breed from the ones that show no symptoms, or if they all have symptoms you breed from the ones with the least symptoms.

Eventually you have a group of chickens that can survive and produce even when they are all exposed to Mareks disease.

The same basic idea works for any kind of animals or for plants. No matter what is troubling them--disease or parasites or extreme weather or predators--as long as it leaves some alive, you can breed those and get ones that are better able to resist that problem in the future.

That sounds sort of scary! Thank you so much!

 

[NatJ]

That sounds sort of scary! Thank you so much!

It is scary. "Breeding for resistance" goes along with "lots of them die." Sometimes they die because the disease kills them, sometimes they die because the person culls them. So it's definitely not for everyone.

 

[LaFleche]

Some reading:
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198#sec008
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26228119/
https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2020/leaky-vaccines-part-in-marek-s-disease-management

 

[ladybrasa]

If available, I get it. Basically chicks I’ve ordered from hatcheries. I don’t breed so developing resistance is not an option. I did hatch shipped eggs, and I vaccinated one batch of 10 with the vaccine available to us normal folks. I did hatch out 2 others (had problems with incubation and shipping damage) but didn’t vaccinate those two - just couldn’t stomach wasting so much vaccine. For the 10 it was something like $6 a shot or thereabouts, I I felt was reasonable, especially considering the cost for a vaccine for a cat or dog. I also have a number of TSC impulse buys, and my understanding is feed store chicks are not typically vaccinated. Though I wasn’t strictly thinking it at the time, this way if unvaccinated birds start dying or getting ill (which will be sad!), my vaccinated ones should be okay (not guaranteed though!), and I’ll know Marek’s is around and go from there. My flock is for eggs, pets (ish), and entertainment, not for making money, or my thoughts would probably be different. Since I have wild turkeys around, a zillion other types of wild birds, other chicken owners not too far off, friends have chickens that I see occasionally, feed store poultry, and so on, there’s always at least risk of the disease showing up some how. It’s one of those ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure type things, at least for me, but everyone has different concerns and considerations.

 

[kyeschicks]

Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate it.