I’m not sure I 100% agree with the first statement that professionals don’t recommend vaccinations. That in itself is actually the most confusing part to me. I have yet to meet a true professional in the industry that doesn’t encourage vaccinations. That would be my regular vet that helps me with chicken stuff, avian vets I’ve been to, specialty vets at Texas A&M, hatchery owners, hatchery workers, etc.
The only people I know that do not recommend it are breeders and small flock owners. I don’t understand this. To me it seems that the only advice to not vaccinate is not professional advice. Or people are taking advice meant for a different level of chicken keeper than they are. Most people that breed chickens are not actually chicken breeders. They’re hobbyists.
Im not trying to be combative, Because I myself have a flock with home hatched chicks that are not vaccinated and hatchery chicks that are.
a leaky vaccine doesn’t mean that a healthy chicken is going around dropping Mareks off at every Corner of the coop. It means an infected bird would be. So in a small personal flock, what’s the difference? Your hens are alive. If they were unvaccinated, they get infected, still shed the virus on your property... and likely die. Either way, you get mareks on your property and youre likely vaccinating every future bird you want, so why not start out that way and not lose birds?
Like I mentioned before - it depends largely on your goals. Some people here have mentioned hatcheries suggesting that people don't vaccinate their chicks. I know one vet, personally, that says if you aren't keeping them as pets don't use the Mareks vaccine. But again, most vets aren't trained to knowledge on chickens or their vaccines. And breeders
are professionals. If you selected a random breeder and a random vet and asked them questions about chicken health most breeders would outclass the veterinarians any day of the week cause the vets aren't trained to know these things. The breeders HAVE to know these things. They're intimately connected to the state of chickens and chicken health in the united states and most keep up on new research and findings and methods.
In a small personal flock the main difference is knowledge. If your chickens are all vaccinated and they contract Mareks and, say, one dies (because the vaccine isn't perfect) or none die then you may have a flock that's sick (and therefore dangerous to other birds) and not know it. You may try to add unvaccinated birds, hatch chicks, or rehome your chickens with an undisclosed, deadly, highly contagious virus and that's a good way to spread the disease instead of combat it. You may even not take good biosecurity measures to not spread it to other flocks.
This can be a personal liability, but it can also be heartbreaking. You hatch a batch of new chicks and don't vaccinate and after months of raising them one by one they drop dead and you don't know why (until you do and it's too late). You decide to move into chickens for show or business and suddenly it's devastating.
I suspect many people who don't vaccinate for Mareks do it because they value the knowledge of there being such a serious problem so deeply that they would rather see some or all birds die than not know. It could be a personal responsibility thing or a moral imperative thing or whatever but they value that knowledge.
For me, I probably fall into that hobbyist breeder category. But why on earth should I, as a hobbyist, present a sketchier, riskier or worse product than a big business? I want to KNOW that my chickens are Mareks free. I want my customers to KNOW my flock is Mareks free. And if that costs me my birds, so be it. I won't have spread it to other people unwittingly, my customers face less risk, and I sleep easier knowing that I'm being responsible and not contributing to the spread of a deadly disease.
Don't get me wrong. If the vaccine weren't leaky and often unreliable I would be passionately advocating the use of the vaccine. A vaccine that produces a sterile immune response with no to low chance of reinfection is always one worth using IMO. But Mareks doesn't.
Spirit
Greeter
Friend
