Vaccinate or Not

[ShrekDawg]

I guess that's why you didn't see it because I saw my name with what I said but then I read in-between what I wrote and was in shock. I was like I didn't write that did I. I've been so sick that I don't even remember from Thursday till Monday and people have been telling me I've wrote some pretty funny things to them in texts when I had the 104 temp.

Yeah you probably just scrolled past cause sometimes people quote but don’t reply aha

And oh wow!!

 

[FortCluck]

Yeah you probably just scrolled past cause sometimes people quote but don’t reply aha

And oh wow!!

This thread has taught me a lot about vaccinations. Someday I might try to vaccinate the chicks that I get, but for now I just really deal with my own flock and so far I have had no issues.

 

[ShrekDawg]

This thread has taught me a lot about vaccinations. Someday I might try to vaccinate the chicks that I get, but for now I just really deal with my own flock and so far I have had no issues.

Yeah, it’s been very interesting and informative!! And yeah that makes sense!!

 

[Clearwater Chicken]

No vaccinations for my chickens if i can help it.

 

[ellen60]

This assertion of a "non-shedding" Marek's vaccine contradicts everything I've read. If that were true, it seems every hatchery would offer it, and none of us would have to fret about endangering older unvaccinated birds by introducing vaccinated chicks.

I am in agreement. Thanks for sharing this. I purchased two beautiful healthy female Black Australorp chicks at an outdoor animal swap meet a couple of weeks ago, but I neglected to ask her if they had been vaccinated for mareks. So I looked her up on FB and she said, No they had not. Well that presents a dilemma for me as I have 6 Partridge Cochin chicks coming from mypetchicken on August 2, 2021. Sooooo I am reading everything I possibly can about this mareks vaccine to see if I should or should not vaccinate the new chicks that are coming. I want to, I always have vaccinated. But....you see my dilemma now. The Blk. Australoprs will be about 4 months old then but they will be in the coop and the chicks will obviously not be in the coop for some time.

 

[TheFarm41]

Does anyone know about the Mareks Vaccine and how the virus works? It is my understanding that the vaccine protects the bird from getting Mareks symptoms and getting sick, but that a vaccinated bird can still carry the virus and spread it to any non vaccinated birds. We have a mixed flock, some from the farm store and some home hatch. Most any bird bought from a local farm store has been vaccinated.

We are pretty sure we had Mareks run through our flock a couple of years ago. Only the home hatch showed symptoms and died. We did not do a post mortem to confirm that it was Mareks. But the symptoms pointed to it; young healthy birds were quickly paralyzed. They had no diareah, or other symptoms, they were hungry and continued to eat if they could. None of the vaccinated birds got sick we assumed it was Mareks.

Now we keep our home hatch and store bought birds separated (kind of). We do have about 4 rogue home hatch birds that roam the farm, they sleep in a tree and are exposed to all the other birds and their living areas. They are about 4 years old now and were present for the Mareks outbreak. I think they have either survived Mareks, built an immunity, or the Mareks has run its course through our farm and missed them.

I have a fried who breeds and sells pullets. She home vaccinates all her birds. It is simple to do at home, you just have to buy the vaccine and give the day old chicks a shot. The problems is I have only found the vaccine in very large doses and it does not keep.

We have decided to not vaccinate our home hatch and things seem to have smoothed out. We loose a sick chicken from time to time, but never more than one every 6 months or so. We have over 100 birds, so that doesn't seem like that many.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Does anyone know about the Mareks Vaccine and how the virus works? It is my understanding that the vaccine protects the bird from getting Mareks symptoms and getting sick, but that a vaccinated bird can still carry the virus and spread it to any non vaccinated birds. We have a mixed flock, some from the farm store and some home hatch. Most any bird bought from a local farm store has been vaccinated.

We are pretty sure we had Mareks run through our flock a couple of years ago. Only the home hatch showed symptoms and died. We did not do a post mortem to confirm that it was Mareks. But the symptoms pointed to it; young healthy birds were quickly paralyzed. They had no diareah, or other symptoms, they were hungry and continued to eat if they could. None of the vaccinated birds got sick we assumed it was Mareks.

Now we keep our home hatch and store bought birds separated (kind of). We do have about 4 rogue home hatch birds that roam the farm, they sleep in a tree and are exposed to all the other birds and their living areas. They are about 4 years old now and were present for the Mareks outbreak. I think they have either survived Mareks, built an immunity, or the Mareks has run its course through our farm and missed them.

I have a fried who breeds and sells pullets. She home vaccinates all her birds. It is simple to do at home, you just have to buy the vaccine and give the day old chicks a shot. The problems is I have only found the vaccine in very large doses and it does not keep.

We have decided to not vaccinate our home hatch and things seem to have smoothed out. We loose a sick chicken from time to time, but never more than one every 6 months or so. We have over 100 birds, so that doesn't seem like that many.

Sounds like you pretty much got it right. However, I do doubt that Marek’s has run its course and is now gone. If a flock is infected, they’ll carry and spread Marek’s whether they show symptoms or not.

 

[afowllover]

Meant to add that Damerow is also the author of "The Chicken Health Handbook," and blogs at both gaildamerow.com and https://blog.cacklehatchery.com/author/gailcackle/ Her books have been a great help in my 20 years of keeping hens, and I trust her on this issue.

Just an update for future viewers that the blog link is updated but Gail still writes for Cackle https://www.cacklehatchery.com/blog/