help! Marek’s disease???

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baronrenfrew
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help! Marek’s disease???

Post by baronrenfrew » Sat May 12, 2018 4:42 pm

So i had a rooster go from healthy to limping on one leg in a matter of two days. I got rid of him. Two days ago an adult buckeye hen started limping, now she’s lame, and an RIR hen started limping. sheesh

suspect: Marek’s disease (technically a herpes virus)

So I put a search here and read a bunch in older threads (the best I think written by Jan aka WWW).

So do I keep culling and hoping or what?
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Happy
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Re: help! Marek’s disease???

Post by Happy » Sat May 12, 2018 6:52 pm

I know very little to nothing about this but I do know that you will be asked how old these birds were that came down with these symptoms as Mareks seems to have a window of when birds come down with it.
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kenya
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Re: help! Marek’s disease???

Post by kenya » Sat May 12, 2018 7:34 pm

I don't think culling will help they've all been exposed, some will live some will die. Some will show symptoms some won't. Sorry I don't think you can do much now. Hope someone else has a different view.
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Re: help! Marek’s disease???

Post by Ontario Chick » Sat May 12, 2018 8:43 pm

It's fairly unusual to see Mareks start in a flock with adult birds, usually if you have an outbreak it tends to start with pullets between 3 to 5 month.
Not that much you can do now accept segregate and watch.
Were the birds subject to any kind of unusual stress ?
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windwalkingwolf
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Re: help! Marek’s disease???

Post by windwalkingwolf » Sun May 13, 2018 12:49 am

Don't panic just yet. First thing I would try is a change of feed, and some extra vitamins and minerals. Several vitamin deficiencies can present with varying degrees of lameness and paralysis, and older feed or a mis-mixed batch would be the first suspect.
Marek's (usually) takes weeks from time of exposure to symptoms, which is why you almost never see very young chicks with it. Are you in contact with anyone you've sold birds to in the past few months? If it IS Marek's, all your birds are already exposed, and have been for some time, and anyone you've sold to fairly recently could be experiencing some trouble as well, and finding out if they've had any birds come up lame and die, would definitely narrow down the field of what's going on. You don't have to panic the new owners, just do a friendly check in in case you want some breeding stock back from them at some point or something.
Check ALL your birds for condition, to see if anyone is getting skinny (sharp keel). Separate those guys if you can and keep an eye on them for the next few months. If it's a feed issue, and you change the feed, they should put weight back on. If it's Marek's affecting gut or organs, they won't put it back no matter how much they eat.
Should you decide to euthanize another that's lame, have a peek around inside, it's free, and can tell you lots of things about your bird's condition, whether it has Mareks or not. If you can't bring yourself to unbuild a chicken, a report from Guelph (while not cheap anymore) can help solve the problem and help make the decision on what to do next, give you clues on what's working and what's not.
If it does turn out to be Mareks, it's entirely up to you what you do next. There really isn't anyway to keep a chicken from being exposed, short of a hermetically sealed environment. It's my (uneducated, mind you) opinion that occasional exposure to tiny amounts of infected dander builds immunity in many chickens, and is why adult chickens in their prime don't seem to catch it, unless they've previously been kept in very controlled conditions without any wild exposure at all, or are unfortunate enough to come into contact with an extremely virulent strain. There are several options for you to decide from, and all of them are work: whether it's cull all, sterilize and start over; cull only as illness presents and breed for resistance (you will miss some that seem healthy but will sicken and die later on from the lingering tumours or scarring that results) or vaccinate all birds, which ensures that they all carry Marek's, but you may get a few healthy breeding years out of them before their immune system tanks. If you want to sell birds that are old enough to have left the brooder, the last two options aren't great for your buyers unless done with full disclosure. Day olds should be fine though, as long as they weren't hen-raised. If you have hard-to-find breeding stock, the first option sucks donkey :sSig_censored: , especially since there's no guarantee that any amount of cleaning, or any period of waiting time will remove the virus from your environment.
The final option is giving up birds completely, but that's one that I personally, can not recommend.
If it IS Mareks, you'll get no judgment from me personally no matter what you decide. I've never seen Mareks in my flocks, but they're potentially typhoid Marys in their own right, and I've taken some heat in the past for not taking a flamethrower to lock stock and barrel.
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Killerbunny
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Re: help! Marek’s disease???

Post by Killerbunny » Sun May 13, 2018 6:46 am

@windwalkingwolf is right in the options. It is your decision in the end. Personally I don't vaccinate for Mareks, just too risky and not very effective because of the different sub-types. I only vaxx for ILT (non-shedding) because in this area it's always a risk. We'll support you what ever you choose.
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