Big Bad Mareks

[2ndTink]

I wanted to post some of my flocks odd health issues and see if anyone can identify these as possible Mareks symptoms, or just random unrelated events. Again, I'm not 100% sure my feed store chicks have been vaccinated or not.

Odd egg shells and early decrease in production: "The Littles" - 3 BRs I purchased together in the summer of 2020 and were housed together for their first 3 years before being added to "The Meeps" (the original BAs and GCs) this summer as I had lost a few Meeps and had room to move them over to leave The Littles coop for my pullets this spring. When they first started laying, all the eggs were normal, a few months in one of them had some lash material they passed in the run, and for a month or two I always cracked their eggs one at a time into a bowl first as occasionally there would be a small amount of lash material in the egg. I had no idea which chicken it was, no symptoms I could see by watching them so I didn't do any specific treatment, the lash issue stopped and I've never seen it again. A few months into laying one started producing thinner shelled eggs with bumps, I think I may have posted about that on here, and I asked a lot of people locally with no good answer. One by one the other two BRs in that coop started producing the same thin shelled, bumpy, eggs. All my chickens (around 30 birds) are on the exact same feed, these 3 were the only ones with the issue. The first year after they molted and restarted laying the shells were back to normal, then again, one by one they got thin and bumpy. These eggs are porous and don't stay fresh very long, if you float test them in water they will stand up and then float much "fresher" than all the other eggs. They also have free choice oyster shall along with the layer pellets, no impact. In their second year, I typically only got one egg per day from the 3 hens, this year (their third year) I got one per day until late spring then egg production drastically reduced to maybe 2 per month. They are 3 1/2 yr old free loaders, but look very healthy, nothing to note externally.

Bad cocci infection, poor health for 1 1/2 yrs, seems fine now: "The Beeps" purchased spring of 2021, a mix of EEs, RIRs, BAs, and BRs. One BA named Starki had hyperkeratosis on her feet as a chick, I treated them and they got a bit better, she then introduced me to cocci for the first time, a late night trip to TSC for some Corid, she responded to treatment but as soon as I'd stop she'd just crash again. I dosed the whole flock through the waterer but I had to straight dose Starki several times over a month or two. That first summer I'd think she was going to die almost every day. One day she'd seem ok, the next she'd lay with her neck stretched out in front of her with her eyes closed or slowly walk with her eyes closed until she'd bump the run fence and turn and keep slow walking around. It was a complete health roller coaster her first year and a half. I found that if I kept electrolytes in the water she did well, if I left them out for a day or two, she'd start closing her eyes, slow walking around, or laying with her neck stretch out in front of her. She matured late, she was crazy pale. It was a stressful summer always expecting to come out to her being dead. Last summer and this summer, she's perfectly normal, she's got a narrow head with kinda sunken eyes and a huge body, she's not a "pretty chicken", but she does look healthy now. She still has thickened spots on her feet from the hyperkeratosis but it doesn't seem to bother her.

Early decreased egg production? I have been blaming this on them being hatchery birds, my 3 yr old chickens this summer all but stopped laying except for mt 3 BAs, they are laying champs, from the 3 I'd get an average of at least 2 per day, maybe more. The BRs totally tapered off and stopped, the GCs stopped laying and died, of my 2 yr olds the brown egg layers really slowed down but I have so many of them and I don't know who's laying what, the EEs are laying great still. Mareks or genetics?

I thought I had more odd health things, but I'm realizing the other ones with oddities have passed so I'll capture them in another post.

 

[TwoCrows]

Oops, I wrote a post and didnt post it yesterday!
D+1 on vaccination, you'd never know they all got an injection yesterday, so that is good. The older birds are on Organic All Flock with additions of nutritional yeast, Poultry Cell, and Fertrell Breeder supplement, one at a time, and once or twice a week. The younger chicks are on Organic Chick starter with one of the three supplements added almost daily.

Now it's D+2, still looking 100%.

I do have some questions for future hatches, what can I do to sanitize the eggs before setting? I'll have eggs from other breeders, but if I add eggs from my coop there is a chance there would be virus on the shell. I know it doesn't pass through the egg, but what about any dander on the outside of the shell? As soon as they hatch they flop around all over those shells and it seems it would be best if there was a way to make sure the bacterial and viral load is minimized or eliminated.

I did some research on washing eggs that have Mareks dander on them and I can't find much on it in line or here on BYC other than the following, start here...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-histopathology-results.1499707/post-25064246

I gather the basic protocol is to just incubate eggs and vaccinate chicks. I would definitely wash your hands before gathing eggs, use disposable gloves to collect them. You might use a proper egg cleaner although cleaning eggs can push bacteria abd viruses further into the porous shell. I would definitely wipe the eggs off with maybe a clean dry microfiber cloth if nothing else.

 

[TwoCrows]

I wanted to post some of my flocks odd health issues and see if anyone can identify these as possible Mareks symptoms, or just random unrelated events. Again, I'm not 100% sure my feed store chicks have been vaccinated or not.

Odd egg shells and early decrease in production: "The Littles" - 3 BRs I purchased together in the summer of 2020 and were housed together for their first 3 years before being added to "The Meeps" (the original BAs and GCs) this summer as I had lost a few Meeps and had room to move them over to leave The Littles coop for my pullets this spring. When they first started laying, all the eggs were normal, a few months in one of them had some lash material they passed in the run, and for a month or two I always cracked their eggs one at a time into a bowl first as occasionally there would be a small amount of lash material in the egg. I had no idea which chicken it was, no symptoms I could see by watching them so I didn't do any specific treatment, the lash issue stopped and I've never seen it again. A few months into laying one started producing thinner shelled eggs with bumps, I think I may have posted about that on here, and I asked a lot of people locally with no good answer. One by one the other two BRs in that coop started producing the same thin shelled, bumpy, eggs. All my chickens (around 30 birds) are on the exact same feed, these 3 were the only ones with the issue. The first year after they molted and restarted laying the shells were back to normal, then again, one by one they got thin and bumpy. These eggs are porous and don't stay fresh very long, if you float test them in water they will stand up and then float much "fresher" than all the other eggs. They also have free choice oyster shall along with the layer pellets, no impact. In their second year, I typically only got one egg per day from the 3 hens, this year (their third year) I got one per day until late spring then egg production drastically reduced to maybe 2 per month. They are 3 1/2 yr old free loaders, but look very healthy, nothing to note externally.

Bad cocci infection, poor health for 1 1/2 yrs, seems fine now: "The Beeps" purchased spring of 2021, a mix of EEs, RIRs, BAs, and BRs. One BA named Starki had hyperkeratosis on her feet as a chick, I treated them and they got a bit better, she then introduced me to cocci for the first time, a late night trip to TSC for some Corid, she responded to treatment but as soon as I'd stop she'd just crash again. I dosed the whole flock through the waterer but I had to straight dose Starki several times over a month or two. That first summer I'd think she was going to die almost every day. One day she'd seem ok, the next she'd lay with her neck stretched out in front of her with her eyes closed or slowly walk with her eyes closed until she'd bump the run fence and turn and keep slow walking around. It was a complete health roller coaster her first year and a half. I found that if I kept electrolytes in the water she did well, if I left them out for a day or two, she'd start closing her eyes, slow walking around, or laying with her neck stretch out in front of her. She matured late, she was crazy pale. It was a stressful summer always expecting to come out to her being dead. Last summer and this summer, she's perfectly normal, she's got a narrow head with kinda sunken eyes and a huge body, she's not a "pretty chicken", but she does look healthy now. She still has thickened spots on her feet from the hyperkeratosis but it doesn't seem to bother her.

Early decreased egg production? I have been blaming this on them being hatchery birds, my 3 yr old chickens this summer all but stopped laying except for mt 3 BAs, they are laying champs, from the 3 I'd get an average of at least 2 per day, maybe more. The BRs totally tapered off and stopped, the GCs stopped laying and died, of my 2 yr olds the brown egg layers really slowed down but I have so many of them and I don't know who's laying what, the EEs are laying great still. Mareks or genetics?

I thought I had more odd health things, but I'm realizing the other ones with oddities have passed so I'll capture them in another post.

Mareks is going to suppress the immune system of the bird, effecting all the markers that keep disease, inflammation and parasites at bay. I read on line that Mareks does have a direct link to Coccidiosis and other parasite over population, egg laying issues, respiratory problems, over all health of the bird. I told you earlier about the MS in my flock, I first started noticing strange issues that I just couldn't link to anything.... birds turned up with light cases of bacterial infections, Coccidiosis was a constant problem, thin shelled eggs, laying less frequently, skin on the foot pads became very thin, almost yellow (a sign of Vitamin A deficiency) combs weren't waxy and bright, runny noses, birds weren't eating enough, ect... just light weight illness that didn't necessarily effect their day to day activities and happiness, but enough to look off, just not thriving like they should. So I would imagine that any bird in your flock that is starting to appear "off" in any area of their bodily and daily functions, this may be a bird showing the beginnings of the virus doing what it does. And this particular bird needs to be watched.

 

[Bkaye]

It is my understanding on the vaccine that it is only effective in day old chicks and they must be quarantined away from any possible Marek’s dander for a minimum of 4 days for the vaccine to work. If those babies are on your property that you vaccinated and you had already been going from your other birds to your babies there’s a chance it may not work. Especially if you wore the same clothes.

I have Marek’s here and it has been an emotional rollercoaster. There have been days I’ve told my husband I am done and these birds will live out the rest of their lives and that’s it. Then there’s other days where I see how well they are doing and I contemplate getting vaccinated birds.

When my first bird shows signs of Marek’s I had a bantam Cochin sitting on a few lf eggs. All of my lf birds were vaccinated from the hatchery, however none of my bantams were vaccinated, they came from tsc. A couple days before hatch we got our diagnosis and I was devastated. This was last January.

The September prior we purchased quail D’anver hatching eggs. We hatched out 11. We ended up loosing all 11. One male and one female almost made it to their year neither before succumbing.

Since that time I lost one of those 2 babies that hatched out at 8mo old. She was laying and started to act lethargic. I suspected she had cancer. My husband and I performed a necropsy and posted pics on the forum to help us figure out what may have gone wrong.

We had another bantam go broody so we hatched out 3 more lf shortly before the easter if this year. Around the same time we found some more danger eggs that were told they had bred for resistance. We figured we would give it another sho and hatched out 13. To date we have lost all but 3 (2 females and a male). One of the females started to lay in October and the other has yet to start. My male I currently have isolated, I originally thought he was have symptoms from Marek’s but the more I watched the more I wondered if it was an injury as it hasn’t presented like any of the others I’ve had. He started off limping but he holds his foot up and doesn’t want to put weight on it. He’s been isolated about a week now and seems to be doing significantly better. I plan to keep him in the dog crate until the limp is gone to keep from the injury reoccurring. All 3 of my lf I hatched out of this batch are doing great. 1 has yet to start laying.

Out of my original 6 bantams that I kept I have 3 left. Which are 2 Cochins and a silkie. My original D’anver boy I lost recently to what I suspect to be tumors.

I have seen all 3 versions of Marek’s here. Most of my young birds present with paralysis prior or right around pol. The boys will present with paralysis around the time their hormones kick in. Here is usually around 13-22 weeks. Typically after that they waste away. They will eat like they are starving but they don’t absorbed the nutrients and they rapidly lose weight and get weak. I have also had occular Marek’s. I have only noticed the occular form in my lf. Both girls that I saw with occular passed. One was one of my original vaccinated birds, she died right at her one year bday and the other was the baby that was hatched out mentioned above.

I have noticed with my birds having marked their immune system is down and I constantly battle coccidiosis. When I have chicks I have to go through several rounds of corid, sulfa and tultrazuril to get it under control and I still end up with losses due to the coccidiosis. A couple months ago one of my Danvers came down with enteritis due to some type of infection. I thought she was starting with Marek’s until I saw her pass blood. Started her on sulfa and she made a full recovery. I also have to work my birds monthly.

We have a high worm load here and with my flocks weekend immune system it gets out of hand if I don’t address it monthly.

With all the issues I’ve had due to Mareks I’ve learned a lot as well as what to looks for and spot the signs. We have bought the stuff and learned to perform our own fecal float. This is how we were able to confirm we were still dealing with coccidiosis even after several rounds of tultrazuril and sulfa.

Within the past couple months I have started to ferment my all flock feed. I’m hoping by doing this is will keep their immune system up better and hopefully if/when I have chicks it will give them a leg up against coccidosis.

 

[2ndTink]

I did some research on washing eggs that have Mareks dander on them and I can't find much on it in line or here on BYC other than the following, start here...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-histopathology-results.1499707/post-25064246

I gather the basic protocol is to just incubate eggs and vaccinate chicks. I would definitely wash your hands before gathing eggs, use disposable gloves to collect them. You might use a proper egg cleaner although cleaning eggs can push bacteria abd viruses further into the porous shell. I would definitely wipe the eggs off with maybe a clean dry microfiber cloth if nothing else.

Odd, I hadn't read anything about the Brinsea egg and incubator wash, it seems that should have popped right up. I found info on using hydrogen peroxide and a really good one when they did multiple methods and test incubated the eggs. I'll look for the link....

The other two were using hydrogen peroxide and a friend's friend uses Gold Listerine.

 

[2ndTink]

It is my understanding on the vaccine that it is only effective in day old chicks and they must be quarantined away from any possible Marek’s dander for a minimum of 4 days for the vaccine to work. If those babies are on your property that you vaccinated and you had already been going from your other birds to your babies there’s a chance it may not work. Especially if you wore the same clothes.

I have Marek’s here and it has been an emotional rollercoaster. There have been days I’ve told my husband I am done and these birds will live out the rest of their lives and that’s it. Then there’s other days where I see how well they are doing and I contemplate getting vaccinated birds.

When my first bird shows signs of Marek’s I had a bantam Cochin sitting on a few lf eggs. All of my lf birds were vaccinated from the hatchery, however none of my bantams were vaccinated, they came from tsc. A couple days before hatch we got our diagnosis and I was devastated. This was last January.

The September prior we purchased quail D’anver hatching eggs. We hatched out 11. We ended up loosing all 11. One male and one female almost made it to their year neither before succumbing.

Since that time I lost one of those 2 babies that hatched out at 8mo old. She was laying and started to act lethargic. I suspected she had cancer. My husband and I performed a necropsy and posted pics on the forum to help us figure out what may have gone wrong.

We had another bantam go broody so we hatched out 3 more lf shortly before the easter if this year. Around the same time we found some more danger eggs that were told they had bred for resistance. We figured we would give it another sho and hatched out 13. To date we have lost all but 3 (2 females and a male). One of the females started to lay in October and the other has yet to start. My male I currently have isolated, I originally thought he was have symptoms from Marek’s but the more I watched the more I wondered if it was an injury as it hasn’t presented like any of the others I’ve had. He started off limping but he holds his foot up and doesn’t want to put weight on it. He’s been isolated about a week now and seems to be doing significantly better. I plan to keep him in the dog crate until the limp is gone to keep from the injury reoccurring. All 3 of my lf I hatched out of this batch are doing great. 1 has yet to start laying.

Out of my original 6 bantams that I kept I have 3 left. Which are 2 Cochins and a silkie. My original D’anver boy I lost recently to what I suspect to be tumors.

I have seen all 3 versions of Marek’s here. Most of my young birds present with paralysis prior or right around pol. The boys will present with paralysis around the time their hormones kick in. Here is usually around 13-22 weeks. Typically after that they waste away. They will eat like they are starving but they don’t absorbed the nutrients and they rapidly lose weight and get weak. I have also had occular Marek’s. I have only noticed the occular form in my lf. Both girls that I saw with occular passed. One was one of my original vaccinated birds, she died right at her one year bday and the other was the baby that was hatched out mentioned above.

I have noticed with my birds having marked their immune system is down and I constantly battle coccidiosis. When I have chicks I have to go through several rounds of corid, sulfa and tultrazuril to get it under control and I still end up with losses due to the coccidiosis. A couple months ago one of my Danvers came down with enteritis due to some type of infection. I thought she was starting with Marek’s until I saw her pass blood. Started her on sulfa and she made a full recovery. I also have to work my birds monthly.

We have a high worm load here and with my flocks weekend immune system it gets out of hand if I don’t address it monthly.

With all the issues I’ve had due to Mareks I’ve learned a lot as well as what to looks for and spot the signs. We have bought the stuff and learned to perform our own fecal float. This is how we were able to confirm we were still dealing with coccidiosis even after several rounds of tultrazuril and sulfa.

Within the past couple months I have started to ferment my all flock feed. I’m hoping by doing this is will keep their immune system up better and hopefully if/when I have chicks it will give them a leg up against coccidosis.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with Mareks! And yikes, all 3 versions of Mareks, I don't know for sure but I am assuming I just have the 1 version of "classical" Mareks. With my unvaccinated silkies I've had 3 pullets at 4 to 5 months old present symptoms, no symptomatic males yet and I have 6 cockerels from my July '23 hatch.

I know vaccinating my chicks might not be effective, but I wanted to at least try. Have you vaccinated any of your home hatched chicks?

I have read about chickens with Mareks being more susceptible to cocci as well. I've only had to treat my flock for cocci the one time and that was 2 years ago, I did treat my pullets this spring, there wasn't bloody stool, but there was a week where it seemed there was intestinal shed and it was about 2 weeks after moving them from the brooder to the coop. I don't know if it was actually cocci, but I used Corod just in case.

Thank you so much for sharing your first hand experience ❤ please share away, I am information hungry!

 

[Debbie292d]

Oops, I wrote a post and didnt post it yesterday!
D+1 on vaccination, you'd never know they all got an injection yesterday, so that is good. The older birds are on Organic All Flock with additions of nutritional yeast, Poultry Cell, and Fertrell Breeder supplement, one at a time, and once or twice a week. The younger chicks are on Organic Chick starter with one of the three supplements added almost daily.

Now it's D+2, still looking 100%.

I do have some questions for future hatches, what can I do to sanitize the eggs before setting? I'll have eggs from other breeders, but if I add eggs from my coop there is a chance there would be virus on the shell. I know it doesn't pass through the egg, but what about any dander on the outside of the shell? As soon as they hatch they flop around all over those shells and it seems it would be best if there was a way to make sure the bacterial and viral load is minimized or eliminated.

Odd, I hadn't read anything about the Brinsea egg and incubator wash, it seems that should have popped right up. I found info on using hydrogen peroxide and a really good one when they did multiple methods and test incubated the eggs. I'll look for the link....

The other two were using hydrogen peroxide and a friend's friend uses Gold Listerine.

Have you heard of Odoban? It kills marek's and about everything else known to man.

We have it in concentrate in a gallon jug but it comes in sprays too. You can get it online or in most stores, but we got ours from my folks from Sam's Club a decade ago.

This would be for coops, homes, incubators, etc., but I tried to find out if it could be sprayed on eggs or to disinfect hatching eggs and not finding anything.

 

[Bkaye]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with Mareks! And yikes, all 3 versions of Mareks, I don't know for sure but I am assuming I just have the 1 version of "classical" Mareks. With my unvaccinated silkies I've had 3 pullets at 4 to 5 months old present symptoms, no symptomatic males yet and I have 6 cockerels from my July '23 hatch.

I know vaccinating my chicks might not be effective, but I wanted to at least try. Have you vaccinated any of your home hatched chicks?

I have read about chickens with Mareks being more susceptible to cocci as well. I've only had to treat my flock for cocci the one time and that was 2 years ago, I did treat my pullets this spring, there wasn't bloody stool, but there was a week where it seemed there was intestinal shed and it was about 2 weeks after moving them from the brooder to the coop. I don't know if it was actually cocci, but I used Corod just in case.

Thank you so much for sharing your first hand experience ❤ please share away, I am information hungry!

I have not vaccinated any of my home hatched chicks. Any chick that I do hatch out here I do not plan to vaccinate. Some things I’ve read and so far has held true for my lf is that if the parents are vaccinated they seem to pass on some sort of resistance on to their offspring.

Any new chick that I bring I bring in will be vaccinated but I do want to try to breed for resistance too.

 

[Bkaye]

Have you heard of Odoban? It kills marek's and about everything else known to man.

We have it in concentrate in a gallon jug but it comes in sprays too. You can get it online or in most stores, but we got ours from my folks from Sam's Club a decade ago.

This would be for coops, homes, incubators, etc., but I tried to find out if it could be sprayed on eggs or to disinfect hatching eggs and not finding anything.

Oxine is another. I have heard that some have washed eggs in oxine prior to incubating. I have not tried it myself however.

 

[2ndTink]

Have you heard of Odoban? It kills marek's and about everything else known to man.

We have it in concentrate in a gallon jug but it comes in sprays too. You can get it online or in most stores, but we got ours from my folks from Sam's Club a decade ago.

This would be for coops, homes, incubators, etc., but I tried to find out if it could be sprayed on eggs or to disinfect hatching eggs and not finding anything.

About to Google Odoban! New Year, new ways to improve my flock care and health it's too cold to fully spray out the coops, but maybe I could do a lighter spray instead of a soak, and do a full hose out and sanitization once it warms up again.

If there's no info in using it on eggs I don't think I'd want to try it, but I'd love to fully cleanse the coops!