Mareks Disease

[lonicera56]

Sadly I have lost quite a few of my young Pekins over the summer & after the 5th one died in exactly the same way as the previous ones, I had a PM which revealed a "Mareks-like" virus, according to the vet.
I have read what I can about Mareks to try & decide my best course of action with regard to my remaining birds, which fortunately are separate from the main flock. Every time I find a bird looking a bit "iffy", I remove him from the others until the inevitable happens (we have even tried killing the house-mates to try & stop it in its tracks) but it still seems to be travelling slowly through the rest.
What I can't get my head round is why does this affect only 1 bird at a time & why is it always at about 2 week intervals? Presumably the 2 week thing must be to do with incubation period, but if there were 8 together originally, how come they didn't all contract symptons & die at the same time?
Can anyone shed any light on this please?

 

[girlracer265]

i was talking to a breeder earlier in the week and he says his vets now say even the vaccination against marek's is not 100 % and it takes several months to become effective ( i know trhat doesn't help you but just thought i would pass the information on)
Because he vaccinates all his birds they are now carriers, so any birds he buys in now have to be vaccinated and kept seperate for several months
here is tims page on marek's
http://poultrykeeper.com/chickens/health/mareks-disease.html
if you google there is lots of info out there

 

[Tim]

Marek's lies dormant most of the time and will appear sporadically. They usually show signs of paralysis and their toes can contract, legs forward or backwards. It won't show up in your birds most of the time but eventually they usually die. I have found Point Of Lay birds seem to be the most vulnerable. Strangely, some breeds also seem more likely to get it. Marans never seem to get it yet Barnevelders do a lot more. There seems to be some genetics at work with some breeds building up immunity.

It usually needs a 'trigger' - could some of your birds be stressed - moulting, parasites or a change in housing, feeding or even bullying?

As sad as it is to say, I don't know any way of getting rid of Mareks.

 

[lonicera56]

Thank you both.
It seems to have started with a few birds I bought in - I suppose the move from someone else to me could have been stress enough for them. It sounds like I either put up with this distressing situation and see who I am left with, or cull them all to eradicate it, although from what you are both saying the next birds I get could in theory have the same problem?
It's funny, but my vet said that once the birds are at point of lay, they are unlikely to get it, but some of the ones that have died are atleast 20 weeks old, which would tie in with what you say. Do older birds get it, or do they just carry it? How is it spread - my vet says by "dander", is this right?
I don't know what the "trigger" is, they seem to be quite a happy family, they have a fairly new house which is cleaned very regularly and checked for redmite every day, with no real signs (my husband will tell you I spend more time cleaning the chicken houses than I do our home!!). There've been no major changes to their food & I give them Verm-x for worms (although I have read mixed reports about this), don't know what else to do.

 

[Tim]

I really like Verm-X - since I started using it, I have had some great results and good results in worm egg counts too but I still have Flubenvet in the cupboard for the 'just in case'.

Is there a possibility that you brought in Vaccinated birds at some point that passed it on to birds that weren't vaccinated?

I've become quite twitchy with my flock now. I've had to cull all of my birds in the past thanks to Mycoplasma and now I am very careful with what comes in - I hatch eggs or new birds go into quarantine for a good number of weeks but even then, it's still easy to have them carry something in.

Don't dispair - but keep good hygene when going between the two lots of birds and see to the healthy ones first. Personally I wouldn't consider culling yet but I would keep new birds in a separate area away from the potentially sick flock. It does apparently survive for long periods of time too in houses (we're talking months here) = so best to disinfect well if you do put other birds in there.

Yes, I believe your vet is right -It is highly contagious virus and is found in the follicles of feathers and spread by dander – the cells from the chickens’ feathers and skin.

I believe it's the onset of lay that puts demands on the birds and cause the 'stress' that can bring on Mareks. If you think about it, it's a herpes type virus, I believe cold sores in humans are also a herpes type of virus. The people that get them usually get them (I think some people have immunity?) but they tend to get them after a cold or if they become stressed / run down and they will always have the virus, dormant in their bodies.

The few weeks between deaths could be as other birds get it - Chickens wih Mareks shed infectious dander two or three weeks after being infected themselves.

 

[lonicera56]

Tim,
thank you for that, that's a good explanation & really helpful. The bit about dander is particularly interesting.
I will just have to continue playing the waiting game with everything crossed that I possibly can
Thanks again
Caroline

 

[Tim]

Good Luck Caroline.

If I think of anything else that might help I will let you know.

Tim

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry for your losses Caroline ,very upsetting for you and your family.
Hopefully,your healthy looking ones are free of mareks and in time you wont have the problem.