Treatment that does not involve trip to the vet for pullet w/ marek's?

[horsejody]

pips&peeps :

I agree with Jody, if the bird lives it will never be quite right and unproductive. You are also exposing all the birds on your farm to mareks. The vaccine does not prevent mareks disease, it is supposed to prevents tumors from forming in the bird.

You are also risking your neighbors flocks and could be carrying mareks virus on your clothing when you go to the feed store, thus potentually infecting hundreds of other farms, which in my opinion is very irresponsible.

The vaccine does prevent the disease not just the tumors. Also, Marek's disease is everywhere in the outdoor environment. Vaccination and quarantine in an indoor sterile while the vaccine takes effect is the only real preventative. Most unvaccinated adult birds harbor the latent virus in their system. It is a personal choice to cull or not to cull. But culling this bird will be of no benefit to the birds already there. As far as carrying infection into feed stores, Marek's isn't the only disease carried on your clothes and shoes.​

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
The vaccine does prevent the disease not just the tumors. Also, Marek's disease is everywhere in the outdoor environment. Vaccination and quarantine in an indoor sterile while the vaccine takes effect is the only real preventative. Most unvaccinated adult birds harbor the latent virus in their system. It is a personal choice to cull or not to cull. But culling this bird will be of no benefit to the birds already there. As far as carrying infection into feed stores, Marek's isn't the only disease carried on your clothes and shoes.

Again, it does not prevent the disease:

Vaccinating for Mareks with the Mareks vaccine : Vaccination should take place as close to one day of age if at all possible,but may be done at any age as earlier discussed. Mareks vaccine is unique in that it does not stop a bird from becoming infected with the virus,but it stops the formation of the Tumors that are caused by the Mareks virus. Birds that are newly vaccinated should not be exposed to adult birds for at least fourteen days to allow the vaccine to take hold. The vaccine comes as a two part vaccine. One bottle contains a small freeze dried wafer which is the actual vaccine. This is a Live Virus vaccine and can not be saved once it is mixed. Once mixed the life of the vaccine is approximately two to two and one half hours. The second part of the vaccine is a bottle of diluent which is 200 cc/ml of extender. It is not just water but a broth so to speak of special growth media for the Vaccine Virus to survive on during mixing and vaccination.

This is quoted from Peter Brown's website in an article about Mareks Disease.

 

[horsejody]

pips&peeps :

Quote:
The vaccine does prevent the disease not just the tumors. Also, Marek's disease is everywhere in the outdoor environment. Vaccination and quarantine in an indoor sterile while the vaccine takes effect is the only real preventative. Most unvaccinated adult birds harbor the latent virus in their system. It is a personal choice to cull or not to cull. But culling this bird will be of no benefit to the birds already there. As far as carrying infection into feed stores, Marek's isn't the only disease carried on your clothes and shoes.

Again, it does not prevent the disease:

Vaccinating for Mareks with the Mareks vaccine : Vaccination should take place as close to one day of age if at all possible,but may be done at any age as earlier discussed. Mareks vaccine is unique in that it does not stop a bird from becoming infected with the virus,but it stops the formation of the Tumors that are caused by the Mareks virus. Birds that are newly vaccinated should not be exposed to adult birds for at least fourteen days to allow the vaccine to take hold. The vaccine comes as a two part vaccine. One bottle contains a small freeze dried wafer which is the actual vaccine. This is a Live Virus vaccine and can not be saved once it is mixed. Once mixed the life of the vaccine is approximately two to two and one half hours. The second part of the vaccine is a bottle of diluent which is 200 cc/ml of extender. It is not just water but a broth so to speak of special growth media for the Vaccine Virus to survive on during mixing and vaccination.

This is quoted from Peter Brown's website in an article about Mareks Disease.​

I still trust my source at the poultry dept at MSU

 

[pips&peeps]

I also have the instructions label from some Fort Dodge vaccine which states:

"MD-Vac CFL is recommended for the vaccination of healthy one-day-old chicks only, to aid in the prevention of the signs and lesions of Marek's disease."

Maybe you misunderstood them, if I were you and you still don't believe me, I would get ahold of them and ask again.

 

[glenda]

I've had chicks hatching for the last week and want to know if it's ok to give the merik vacc,to the older ones or did I want to long I know the hatchiess do it one day one so I just need to know if a week old chick is to old,

 

[pips&peeps]

According to Peter Brown and from what I understand you can. The reason they do not recommend giving the vaccine to older birds is because they have usually already been exposed to the disease.

If you have a log in and password with Doc, I Need Help on the Feather Fanciers Forum then you can see the article about Marek's disease that he has written.

 

[Melilem]

Eww chicken herpies! Seriously though, the vaccine doesnt prevent Marek's disease, just the symptoms.

 

[chickygirl2]

Cranberrry supplements can help


http://fowlfacts.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board=afflictiondiseaseff&action=print&thread=1183

 

[horsejody]

Quote:
Not true. Just to be certain of my facts I again e-mailed Dr. Fulton at MSU. He is a poultry disease expert. Hopefully, he won't get sick of my inquiries. This is what I asked him:

"In the past, you have been very helpful with my questions regarding Marek's disease. I am very thankful to you for that. I have another question. I have seen people online claim that the vaccine does not prevent the disease, only the symptoms. That does not seem reasonable to me. What do you think? There recently has been a number of people with pet chickens with Marek's-like symptoms on two different online forums I visit. There has been a lot of discussion on this. I think a lot of misinformation is out there.
Thank you for your time.
Jody "

This was his response:

Dear Jody: Unlike some diseases of poultry, that is not true for Marek's disease. The vaccine is supposed to prevent infection rather than just mask the symptoms. The plan is to have the birds infected with the Marek's disease vaccine virus before they get infected with the "field virus." Hope this helps, R. M. Fulton, D.V.M., Ph.D.

I understand that people have been reading information from Peter Brown from First State Veterinary Supply, Inc., but I don't see his credentials listed. I would much rather trust a poultry disease researcher at a major university than a guy that sells vaccine online as my source. So much of this misinformation has been floating around for so long that people are passing it off as fact.

 

[pips&peeps]

Dr. Fulton is not giving you the correct information. I spoke to Dr. Gustafson who works for Fort Dodge, who makes the vaccine, and she said, "It only prevents the clinical signs of the disease."

I was informed that chickens can still get marek's disease after they have been vaccinated, but they will not develop the tumors and lesions typically associated with it.

You might want to have Dr. Fulton talk to her about this further. Apparently she knows him pretty well and went on to say that this must be some kind of communication error.........