Moving on from Marek's -- Vaccination questions

I found that link, so I won't wait for you to sayif you want it or not......

http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7983206

There is some pretty good stuff here if you want to wade through some of it.

http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7955021

Coopslave/IPF - thank you, that clarifies things.

Yes, the paralysis wore off completely; I don't even remember which bird it was, now.

Coopslave, if a bird recovers completely, I don't see why you say that shows no resistance - resistance is a continuum, from completely susceptible and dying of the disease, to immune.

In some breeds partial resistance might be the best you get.

It is just how I feel about it ipf. I personally don't think a bird is resistant if it succumbs to the disease, recovers and them becomes a carrier to continually shed infected dander. Like I say, this is just my personal spin on it, but it may not be the scientific definition of resistance.

In my flock I prefer to have birds that do not even show symptoms of the disease and seem to actually withstand the infection itself. Others may be happy with other things. All about education and personal choice isn't it?

What you call resistance I would call immunity. How do you distinguish between the two terms, or are they synonymous in your mind?

Given that the dander is everywhere, anyhow, one bird shedding a bit is probably not going to make a lot of difference. What MIGHT make a difference is if it had one of the less virulent serotypes/strains (which seems rather likely, if it recovered), and then your flock will be exposed to that strain first, so the more virulent strains won't take hold. That's my theory of what has happened here; I haven't had a case of mareks for several years now, and I think a very mild strain has taken up residence.

I'm going to call a spade a spade here.

What coop does, works for her. What you do works for you. Her rational will never justify to you why she does what she does because it's the reason you do what you do. Leave it at that please. This thread has been very helpful, but it's not people's practices under scrutiny.

Thanks

I auctually hope this debate continues. It is a respectful debate and something I also wonder about. I believe in breeding for resistance.Let's not forget we are talking about a virus. A virus can take hold of a body due to many factors. One is one's genetic predisposition. Another is environment. I actually would consider a bird who show signs of ( in this case Mareks) and then recovers to have an advantage In immunity. Take for example cancer. Say I get breast cancer and recover. I have a daughter who also then develops breast cancer and also recovers. I realize this is not a contagious disease, but an inheritable and environmental one. But who is to say the type I had, is not treatable under our environmental conditions? Same with Mareks. ( actually a disease model that has educated scientists about cancer).
My point is that showing symptoms is not a negative, but perhaps a positive. The birds that show it and recover are the ones you WANT to breed. You know they acquired it. You know they overcame it. How do you know if they had it otherwise? Maybe further done the line you see less clinical symptoms, but at first, they are the stars, I think.

Susan wrote:I auctually hope this debate continues. It is a respectful debate and something I also wonder about. I believe in breeding for resistance.Let's not forget we are talking about a virus. A virus can take hold of a body due to many factors. One is one's genetic predisposition. Another is environment. I actually would consider a bird who show signs of ( in this case Mareks) and then recovers to have an advantage In immunity. Take for example cancer. Say I get breast cancer and recover. I have a daughter who also then develops breast cancer and also recovers. I realize this is not a contagious disease, but an inheritable and environmental one. But who is to say the type I had, is not treatable under our environmental conditions? Same with Mareks. ( actually a disease model that has educated scientists about cancer).
My point is that showing symptoms is not a negative, but perhaps a positive. The birds that show it and recover are the ones you WANT to breed. You know they acquired it. You know they overcame it. How do you know if they had it otherwise? Maybe further done the line you see less clinical symptoms, but at first, they are the stars, I think.

I'm not trying to stop the discussion, it's helpful and interesting, however she doesn't need to explain why she does what she does -- it has worked for her and THAT's what matters. It doesn't matter WHAT her reasons are, because people are willing to debate until they die about their logic, and that's not what this is about. This is WHY you do what you do and HOW it's worked for you, not why others should do it this way or that.

Sorry if I have offended. Just saying this is a conversation I enjoy, as I contemplate it often.

No, not offended at all. I've just seen this enough in the past to know it turns into a circle of "why" "Because I do." "why" "Because I just do" and so on. Thought I'd nip that in the bud

I don't think you need to worry about that happening between Ipf and Coopslave. I have found both ladies to be very respectful in their previous posts.

Schipperkesue wrote:I don't think you need to worry about that happening between Ipf and Coopslave. I have found both ladies to be very respectful in their previous posts.

Agreed, Sue

I'm one who believes that not every disease is a "bad" disease. Long before vaccines it was common practice to take a once previously infected animal that had recovered from and to put that "carrier" in with others to expose them to the disease. Those that died off were simply the price you paid to immunize your herd or flock.

Unless someone is raising their flock in a bubble with a perfectly controlled atmosphere, no matter how careful they are, disease will eventually happen to a bird in their flock.

I try to familiarize myself with poultry disease as best I can. Based on my own experience keeping birds, I have come to my own opinions of which diseases I would treat and those I will without hesitation put the bird down for.

I am not doubting claims that a bird with Merecks can recover, but I have never seen it myself or heard of it. I would have to wonder IF perhaps the bird didn't have another condition which may have been mistaken for Merecks? I'm glad to hear that it recovered, and if it were my bird and it was eating and drinking okay I don't see any reason not to allow it to live its life.

Each has to know when to treat and when to cull. It's our responisbility to educate ourselves but not to become so phobic that we become afraid of a sneeze or cough. "nuff said.

Regarding this whole only keep the immune or the resistant thing, why don't you just apply a scale? Scales are very useful in deciding how heavily to cull.

You can use a point system or another system of your choosing. I would weigh levels of disease resistance higher than ornamental factors, but maybe closer to equal with egg laying and growth rate depending on what state my flock is in overall. I would also rate not succumbing at all higher than getting sick and recovering. Then, if a bird that got sick is really really high in the ratings, I might decide to keep it anyway.

I know some breeds have almost zero resistance for Mareks, and if I kept one of those breeds I have a feeling I'd be getting pretty excited about a paralyzed hen that even recovered enough to lay a few eggs.

Well, I'm glad I was away for 24 hours! And thanks for the endorsement of coop's and my civility. I must say I was a little taken aback by the post telling me to cease and desist.

As a scientist, I enjoy civilised debate/discussion/argument. That is, IMO, how we learn, from hearing others' viewpoints and challenging them, and being challenged ourselves. I'm quite open to changing my mind when a convincing argument is put forth, and appreciate the opportunity to do so.

Re birds recovering from Marek's - there is lots of documentation, some scientific, some anecdotal. Google "Mareks" and "recovery". Even the Merck vet manual reports it:
"A transient paralysis syndrome (unilateral leg paresis) has been associated with Marek’s disease, causing a characteristic posture of one leg held forward and the other held backward as lesions progress. Chickens become ataxic for periods of several days and then recover."
Damerow's book also states that some birds recover.

The only way to say for sure is a post-mortem, but since she didn't die, I didn't do one! There was nothing else that matched the symptoms, though, and believe me, I looked!

Country Thyme Farm wrote:
You can use a point system or another system of your choosing. I would weigh levels of disease resistance higher than ornamental factors, but maybe closer to equal with egg laying and growth rate depending on what state my flock is in overall. I would also rate not succumbing at all higher than getting sick and recovering. Then, if a bird that got sick is really really high in the ratings, I might decide to keep it anyway.

I know some breeds have almost zero resistance for Mareks, and if I kept one of those breeds I have a feeling I'd be getting pretty excited about a paralyzed hen that even recovered enough to lay a few eggs.

This sounds like a great idea, Country Thyme Farm. I would consider doing this with my silkies since they have tend to have low natural resistance and I have seen as many of 80- 90% of hatches come down with the symptoms. This year our silkies came vaccinated from Performance but once we start breeding them again, I would consider keeping a recovered bird if I was short on breeders. However, I think I would only this as long as necessary to being to pull out some symptom-free breeders. I've simply chosen not to continue working with Silver laced wyandottes because our losses were huge and one bred to work on was enough for me.

With my other breeds which only had the occasional one break down with symptoms, I have simply chosen to cull at first sight of symptoms. Going on our third year now, I am happy, happy, happy that I have not seen any symptoms showing themselves so culling works for me with most of my breeds.

Discussions of Marek's disease have been of great interest to me since we had our outbreak.
To this point, I have not tried keeping one's with symptoms to see if they recover but I also have read that it is possible in some of them. Seems to me, if I remember correctly, that it contributed recovery to only a small percent of birds that were showing symptoms. However, it may be that these recovered birds could very well work as a part of a "breeding for resistance" program.

I am coming late to this party.

After reading everything, I have one burning thought. Sweetened, you are moving forward on the assumption that what you saw in your autopsy was Marek's. But truth be told, that is a guess. Just a guess. There is the possibility that you have Marek's. However, there is also the possibility that you do not.

I read about Marek's and other diseases and marvel that I have never had this problem in my own flock. And I lug home birds from the auction, for Pete's sake! Talk about inviting disease trouble (that's how I gave my flock rampant lice back before I knew about such things). To move forward based on one death where you saw some lesions that might or might not have been Marek's.... I think perhaps you are getting to serious and heavy where maybe you don't need to, yet.

You are fairly new to this and very serious about it. You are trying to develop your health plan. Maybe what you need to develop is your own philosophy. What are your goals? What are your illness tolerances? Are you willing to give nature time to see if the bird can survive? Or are you comfortable with being more heavy handed and showing all sickies to The Axe? These are topics for introspective thought late at night with a cup of tea, or Jack Daniels, whatever you prefer.

ipf...would one in the 50s refuse a polio vaccine for your child? Not everything is so black and white. When my own child was months old she exhibited signs of seizures. Was investigated by a specialist. Inconclusive. As health nurse was about to jab her with whopping cough vaccine she asked if there had ever been seizures. I said we had been to speciailist over such. She put the needle down and said "In this area we are having a whooping cough outbreak. Whp cough in children under a year is a very, very serious illness and they can die from it. Whp cough is currently at large in this community. However, there has been a connection between the whp cough vaccine and severe reactions in children who have had seizures. The incidence of bad reaction is very, very, very low. But you need to know, in this small community, despite the published minimal risk, there are three children who will never get out of a wheel chair all because of their whooping cough vaccine. So, do you want to vacinate your baby, or not?"

Hmm...serious illness in community....or slim but possible permanent damage due to vaccine. There was NOTHING black or white about that situation! Either decision could have been bad, perhaps fatal, for my child. It was a horrible position to be in! Which is the lesser of two evils? I placed my baby at risk no matter what I decided!

It sounds, Sweetened, like culling sick birds will not solve your problems since Marek's is everywhere. It sounds like letting them recover is also a problem since they remain disease shedders. Two evils. The trick here is to choose which imperfect evil you are most comfortable living with. This is, in the end, a struggle with yourself.
(I hear brine shrimp do not get Marek's)