Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Oh for Pete's sake!

I lost a hen today!

It's that frigging Marek's. I thought I got rid of that. The easter eggers seem immune to it but some of the hens off the Ameraucanas X bantam caught it. Two unbelievable got better but a third one died this morning. I had accidentally sold all my little hens with the tuffs and beards like the Ameraucana mothers, except for one black hen with reversed silver lacing on her breast, so pretty and of course she died. I am down two hens now because another one turned out to be a sneaky rooster.

So sorry to hear that

Linda

What a shame. Very variable as to who is immune or not.

Frustrating but not the end of the world. I just worry now, is this the beginning of something worse? My neighbour lost hens as well in the last month. Must be in the air or something, she hasn't brought in chickens either.

I took stock last night, still 14 hens so that is a good number over winter, plus there are some a lot prettier.

So, sorry to hear that Skinny rooster. I hope you don't lose anymore.

Ugh, sorry to hear that. I hope you've seen the end of it for a bit.

Skinny rooster wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 05, 2017 10:59 am

Must be in the air or something, she hasn't brought in chickens either.

Actually, it IS in the air. Specifically, it's on feather/skin dust, and that stuff spreads far and wide. Wild birds get Mareks all the time, and are quickly caught by predators, limiting the spread, but can shed before there are symptoms.
Keeping resistant birds, and quickly culling suspected infected ones, is the best way to go in my opinion. Nursing sick birds, or vaccinating for Marek's, just insures that live virus sticks around much longer than it otherwise would

That was the hard part WWW, normally I cull immediately but since her sisters beat it and recovered I was waiting to see what would happen. I felt she wasn't going to make it. Sometimes the best person to listen to is that little voice telling you something that you already know. I won't let that happen again.

I'm not sure but I think one of the mothers has it now. My favorite of the two mothers. She has almost a partridge pattern. She seemed ill but then seemed to be better, now she is off again and last night when I picked her up, she has lost a lot of weight, especially in the breastbone area, that's a really bad sign.

So I'm going to ask a newbie question. I know nothing about mareks aside from what I've googled or read on other poultry sites and we all know that everyone thinks they're an expert and pass along their "opinions" as facts. So I take stuff with a grain of salt when I don't actually know the experience level of the person it's coming from. But I've read A LOT that if you get Mareks in your flock then you need to have a closed flock (no in/no out) at least until all exposed birds are deceased. I read recently on a FB site that a breeder in Ontario is now pretty much shut down due to purchasing a bird with Mareks and exposing her flock.
Then on the flip side I've heard that wild birds carry it and can pass it along. So if that's true I wonder what the point of a closed flock is. Im curious what others thoughts are. I'm so paranoid about this disease. I'm sorry you're having to deal with it Skinny. Do you have any ideas on where it may have come from and how do you plan on dealing with the rest of your birds?

All the adults I bought at auctions in the spring so I have no history of the birds, that's the buyer beware part. One pair of bantams died shortly after I got them and it spread to other pens so I put everything down except the easter eggers and two hens that were sitting. They were not with the others and that seemed to be the end. The chicks were not hatched yet. It appeared a few weeks ago and also at a neighbour's flock, so maybe with the migrating birds it returned. If you don't have it then never buy from an auction, I would take a guess and say most birds from an auction have been exposed. If I were to ever start breeding birds again, I would not buy adults, I would try to find good breeders and buy eggs or day olds if they had a clean setup. I just wanted these guys for eggs and pets to look at so they will be fine here. I think a lot of people have it but don't realize it. It can be a mild form, suddenly one chicken stands off by itself, drops its tail, seems weak, not eating properly and then dies. People very often described this to me, to know for sure you need to ask a vet.