Some excellent info about Mareks

I've often though that would be a good thing to try, and had planned to keep a couple of turkeys this year.

Ipf, culling birds with the virus for me was not to protect the other birds, but to only retain birds that did not come down with symptoms. Just my personal preference for breeding for resistance. It may not be the `right` way, but it worked for me, under my circumstances.

CynthiaM, all of mine presented with the classic type signs you have seen. Paralysis with or without the dropped wing. Some with the typical splayed legs and some just so weak they were not able to stand. I never encountered the coloured or misshaped pupils but I did hear of cases with it.

I had a breeder friend that had blue orps. She had terrible trouble with a variation that was just a wasting type. The birds ate and acted normal, but would just waste away and die. Very sad. I went to her place on a number of occasions and never got it on my place. She also had commercial layers (she had a large number of egg clients) barred rocks and silkies. Only the silkies seemed to be affected by it as well.

It is a very interesting thing and can be very scary until you deal with it and learn to live with it. I am not scared of it any more. I don`t like having to deal with it and hope I don`t have to again, but I am no longer scared of it.

ipf wrote:By "environment" do you simply mean "location"? Sounds like both environments are good healthy ones. When saying environment plays a big part, we usually mean with respect to environmental conditions that differ between the two (or more) sites.

Other possibility in the case you describe is different strains of the disease "in residence" - you have a mild one and they have a more virulent one? Support for my theory. . .

Yes, ipf, I guess I meant location, as their conditions were probably quite similar. I believe your theory is a good one as they did not have as much resistance to the strain they were exposed to at their new location.

Coopslave, understood, those "classic" marek's symptoms, paralysis. I am still not certain that this pullet had a form of marek's that affects the pupil, but the pupil looked so weird, and grey, that is what I took it as and dealt with that.

I fully understand that when a bird is symptomatic for a disease, such as the paralysis of leg, wing dropped, whatever, that the disease has affected that bird for some time, it is not just the beginnings. Think I read somewhere that it takes about 3 weeks for the marek's disease symptoms to manifest -- the paralysis of leg on one side thing, or both, in extreme. That bird would have been certainly "given" the disease long before symptoms appear. Hmmm...sometimes sounds like I repeat myself, but in a different manner each time, smiling.

When I have had, or should I say, desired to cull a bird because of paralysis, I do not just cull for no reason. I do not cull the second I see some sign of that paralysis begin. I wait. If I see that the bird is going down and is going down on the ground hard, has trouble getting up, flopping around, shall we call that too,that is the point at which I cull. Perhaps that bird may recover and be strong again one day. But I always err on the side that I need action. I do not ever want to come into my chicken yard and find a bird that has been trompled by others, picked on because they are doing something really weird (walking and falling down, flopping), I cull before the bird gets to that point. And I always will. Tough love. Period.

When I had that cockerel that had the dropped wing and then the leg paralysis on one side, I tried and tried to overlook that, I watched him like a hawk for a few days. It saddened me and sickened me to see this dude acting the way he did. When it came to the point when he flopped as he tried to walk, and another hen came over and gave him a few good pecks, and when he got up and flopped over to the door to go into his house, and could barely muster his body to get in, but did, and then 3 hens picked on him because he could not move well. I took that young fellow out and immediately saved him from a bunch of nasty hens that would surely have pecked him to death.

I won't go to that point again with any of my stock of flocks. If I see evidence of this horrible and hideous marek's rearing its ugly head, and I am very familiar with early symptoms, I take that bird to a nicer place -- a place where there is no meanies, no pain, and that bird can run and play and eat bugs with all the other happy critters that have gone to the same place. I don't ever want again to see a bird that is picked on like I saw, just because they can't run to get away.

And....nope. I don't have the time, guts nor gumption to babysit a bird in a different place (and I don't have the room either, when I think about it), to help it to heal from a malade that probably won't. Just that side of me that is toughy, tough love, have a wonderful and awesome day, CynthiaM.

I got eggs in the mail for seramas a few years back. Mine were susceptable to mareck's. I crossed them to rapa nuis, who are resistant. It appears that the resistance genes are dominant, as the heterozygous ones appear as healthy as the pure ones. It has been some years of back crossing to pure seramas now, and still, I don't lose chicks or young birds. I am down to 3 of the original birds now, but they are healthy and active for their age. When the wind lets up, I'll take pictures for you of a pure hen and her backcross daughters. I owe pictures to several other threads too, I won't forget, just nasty outside right now.

Thanks for all the good info. Sounds like I have been loosing a few birds per year to this disease, and didn't even know it.  I have to agree with Cynthia, trying to save them is a waste of space and effort. I have tried, but if they lived it was a matter of time before something else took them down.  I have never vaccinated, and won't start now.  My losses simply aren't high enough to warrant that.  I prefer to do my best to keep my birds healthy, and their immune systems strong. Survival of the fittest is  nature's way, and who am I to question that wisdom?

Some immune system thingys are genetic, so allowing nature or the owner to cull the ones with mareks does work.  I have been back crossing to pure seramas, and still have one of my pure hens, so hatched from her this year too.  I had three chicks this year get sort of sleepy and I thought it was coxi for a few hours till I saw they couldn't  walk right.  All three died during that night or the next day or two..  None of the others are sick and there are no new cases.  Could it be that those three were just unlucky and didn't get the resistance genotype?

New set of chicks-now 2.5 months old. Welsummer couldn't walk, was falling over-culled him. This morning a Barnevelder who walks with one foot on top of the other and is pretty wobbly...he is isolated..and will probably be a cull as well.
I had one Marek's last year... again a male chick who was just unable to stand up one day; kept rocking on his hocks and falling over...culled him

In my Dominique newsletter this month they were talking about lymphoid leucosis and I wondered how it compared to Mareks Disease.
In my web research I came across this article which seemed quite easy to understand and thought some of you might like to read it as well.


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lots of typos/misspellings in here which always make me nervous when sourcing facts but worth a read through anyhow I think.

Its interesting to see this thread active again.  I was reading over the early posts from back in august, 2011.  At that time I was really struggling to make a decision on vaccinating for Marek's.  I was actually leaning heavily towards vaccination.
I am so glad now that I decided not to start.  In 2012 and 2013 I have not had a single case of marek's.  And the only one I lost in 2011 was a chick hatched from shipped eggs.  It's just plain luck that I didn't choose to raise any breeds that are especially suseptible to Mareks, but I think I must have strong resistance in my flocks to the local versions of the disease.  Hatching time is already such a busy time, so not having to vaccinate baby chicks is one less thing to worry about.


ps...thanks Miry for the interesting read on Lymphoid Leucosis.