White silkie

Found my young white silkie rooster laying on his side this morning. He can't stand and keeps laying on that one side. HELP what can I do for him??

It could be Mareks.  You could Google the symptoms.

Have been checking it out and yes could be unfortunately. Sure hoping not!!!

Me too, but silkies seem exceptionally prone.  Maybe someone else will chime in with an answer.

I sure hope so!!!

Well, come on you guys!

Look for injury. What is his diet like? Vitamin E sufficient? Lice or mites?  If its Mareks, there is chance for recovery if they don't starve to death. You will have to help him eat and drink. Like sue said tho, they are quite susceptible. Hoping you figure it out.

Right now I am testing a treatment of Grapefruit Seed extract on a bird who is showing similar symptoms.  It's coincidental, mind you... He could have also been stepped on by a goat and I believe that's what happened.  I thought I'd give him the fighting chance.

His diet is chic scratch, whole wheat and grow crumbs. He was in a 4x8 ft pen with a hen, He was fine yesterday. This morning was laying on side. No mites .

Dumb question!! How do you feed a chicken?????????

Like force feed?  Watered food and a syringe.

If its Mareks, Things are not looking good.  I've had one bird recover from a fall over episode, but if they stop eating and drinking, I put them down, personal decision.  Mareks is a virus that will be shed for ever and always by the bird.  There are two choices, really.  Cull anyone who shows symptoms, or cull those who show symptoms and don't recover.  I do the latter.

If I spot a flare up, I treat with probitics and oregano oil.  I'm currently experimenting with Grapefruit seed extract in the water.

GOod luck.

My advice is heartless.  I have a couple breeds that are particularly susceptible to Mareks.  I have never had one recover enough to be really healthy.  The original stock was vaccinated against Mareks but I don't vaccinate, so the second generation took a beating.  It got to the point that when I saw the signs I just automatically put them down.  No attempts to save them.  I hatched a lot and the few remaining were strong.  This year I have their chicks hatching.  It is too early for them to get Mareks but I have noticed a marked difference between the vigor of these chicks compared to last year's.

My heart goes out to you if you are truly an ol'softie.  It is hard to see a favorite go down.  I have a few old hens that I am particularly fond of and when they go I will be very sad.  Some chickens are one in a million.

This one is pretty special1 He was born Valentines week! So, if he does recover will he still spread it and if he doesn;t is there a chance all of the others could get it too? Am I possibly looking at losing all of my silkies?  How does one get Marek's??

olesoftie wrote:This one is pretty special1 He was born Valentines week! So, if he does recover will he still spread it and if he doesn;t is there a chance all of the others could get it too? Am I possibly looking at losing all of my silkies?  How does one get Marek's??

Unfortunately, Softie, you are correct. Here is my understanding of Mareks.

Mareks is a virus, so treating with anti-biotics will help with any secondary infection, but will not assist in the animals recovery from the disease. I have found, however, my birds rarely appear ill when they collapse, star gaze or lose the ability to walk. You can vaccinate for it, but (now, I believe one person who talked to me about it was briarwood, but I could be wrong) some people have done small on farm tests of thrivability with and without the vaccine side by side, and found the vaccine wasn't for them. From further reading on other forums, results are very iffy.

Mareks can be contracted by purchasing infected stock, introduced by your boots if you've been in an infected area, and brought in by wild birds. It is shed freely in bird dander, which is unavoidable. If you have it and have not recently introduced new birds or been to another farm/show, then it's highly probable that you contracted it from the wild bird population. Unless your birds live in a bubble, literally a bio-containment bubble, you'll always run the risk.

In the third generation of hatching and introducing birds, I have noted a noticeable difference in flareups, and they have lessened significantly. I breed for resistance, NOT immunity, because I personally feel survivability is a more significant trait than immunity at this point in my breeding program. If I note a bird with symptoms, it's not sold, it is kept here in the farm or culled for the pot when it is old enough. Since introducing turkeys, I had a flare up of 3 birds (out of, currently, around 100) and I'm only looking at losing one, but giving him the fighting chance.

Turkey's carry a non-infections, similar virus naturally in their systems. Exposing the birds to turkeys is similar to the vaccination process. It'll weed out the week really quickly because, since its not actually an infections virus, the exposure causes an immune response. They'll often get sick or show symptoms soon after their exposure to turkeys, and it helps to figure out what you will do.

If you buy at sales or auctions, it's practically unavoidable and, if someone 'as the crow flies' has it on their farm, it's probable you'll end up with it.

It took me a year, to gain a favorite rooster and have to put him down due to Mareks. It hardened me, a little. I learned I had boundries of where I was willing to be a sap and give them a chance and where I thought their life quality had become so minimal that it was cruel to keep them. I drew that line at being unable to feed and water themselves, and losing the ability to protect yourself from the pecking order. You have to decide where your lines are, and thats a decision only you can make as it has to feel right for you.

Mareks losses are not usually 100%.  I purchased breeding group of an particular breed
and out of 6 birds, 1 came with Mareks.  The rest of the birds were fine and still are.  IF this is Mareks the others could have a degree of immunity.

There are many forms of Mareks and many manifestations of the disease.  Online you can find lots of information to compare and evaluate.

I am going to direct you to a thread that I looked up.  It was made back in 2011, so some of the information about experiences are old.  Pay attention to the accounts people have given.  And that link to another forum has some really good information.  This is such an old topic, and has been hashed over and over.  And this is a good thing, because so many of us will get the mareks virus, some won't.  I have had bouts of it off and on over the years.  Not very many, but every year there seems to be one or two in many, many youngsters that contract the disease and must be put down.  I put any birds that begin to show any paralysis of one side of the body, usually it will manifest in the wing, with the wing dropping and then proceeds down to paralyze the leg.  More commonly found, is that one leg will become weak and within a few days, that bird has began to have an inability to walk. I watch my birds every day, every day and look for any signs of this inability to move the leg or beginning of that, particularly in the youngsters growing out.  mareks will manifest about the age of about 9 weeks and can be older than that, but I have seen it as young as that.  Generally, not until at least that age.  The moment I see any weakness surface, that bird is culled.  I do not wait to see if it will get better.  I will always presume that this is mareks disease manifesting, not injury.  I have a tough love and any bird that is in any way weak does not have a place on my farm.  I breed for quality and health, among other things.  I believe that keeping a weak bird does nothing to improve bird propogation.  I have a tough love, and have culled youngsters throughout the years if illness arises, and I always will.  Tough love. 
 
The paralyzing of one side of the body I think is the most common form of mareks disease (notice I do not use initial capitals on that freakin' word mareks?  it does not deserve acknowledgement of a capital letter, smiling) that we see.  There are other forms, but this is the more common one. 
 
some people try to help a bird to recover from the disease and evidently some do, so I have heard, but I wonder for how long they live, a full and healthy life, such as a healthy bird should have, doubt it, but then who knows, just my inner voice.  I don't care what anyone says, I don't believe that bird will ever be 100% whole, we can't see inside the bird, nor in the brain.
 
mareks disease is everywhere.  You cannnot avoid it, the birds cannot avoid it, evidently.....it floats on the air and just waits to rear its ugly head in the form of a horrid disease that will most likely kill the bird on its own, or cause human intervention.  It is a worldwide travesty to the world of the fowl, all over the world....
 
I am sorry to hear that your little silkie cockerel has this (and this is what it likely is, the disease manifests very quickly).  I wish I could tell you that it will recover, but I don't think it will.  People want to treat with natural remedies.  Again, perhaps this will help bird to recover, but will that bird ever be 100% again with health?  Who knows.  My hat off to you all that are trying to get cures for the birds, and wish you well.  Not me.  I am tough love.  I am Ms. death when I see any bird with illness such as this, just me, the way I am.  Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.
 
A good post from the year of 2011, remember, this was two years ago this post was made
https://wcps.canadian-forum.com/t1346-some-excellent-info-about-mareks?highlight=mareks+disease

Hi My little guy is sittinng today. I stood him up and balanced him for a bit and then he is now squatting and still up, drinking water and eating. I did check his one leg  that he can;t seem to stand on and am wondering if it wasn't hurt because as soon as I touch by that leg it seems to hurt him. Hopefully this means he doesn't have Mareks ???????????

Cross your fingers for a full recovery!  What will be, will be!

I am crossing fingers and toes!!!!

Well appears my little guy is up and acting normal. Did another check on his leg yesterday. Weird as the one lame leg is sore when you get near his "knee" so thinking may have been lucky and not Mareks at all.

I hope he makes it for you...if he doesn't find out for sure and have it tested, its $15? Provincial lab and atleast you'll know for sure. 

Do you have selenium in your soil where you live?  I struggled last year with vitamin deficiency but didn't know that till I lost many birds. I finally figured it out after talking to a pig farmer who said everyone here has to add selenium to the diet as we don't have selenium in our soil or water. Without selenium vitamin e can't be absorbed, and it leads to neurological problems that are similar to Mereks. I ruled out Mereks (just one of the things we checked for) with having the mortalities tested. AND to add to it, I found out the source of food I was getting didn't add selenium and wasn't fresh because of the long transportation chain, so the vitamin e and b vitamines were being degraded before I even bought it. So my poor chickies were deficient in selenium leading to vitamin e deficiency, and deficient in B vitamines also. I changed feed, supplemented selenium, vita b and e, added kelp and BOSS sprouts and within about 2 months I had totally different chickens. Some of the ones I hatched here, that were subject to the full deficiency for the longest and youngest, never did fully recover. 

Each time a bird would die or show symptoms, I would think it was one thing or another, or forum members would suggest various diseases from thier own experience, so i decided them away for testing. The only thing that would show in the lab was secondary bacterial overgrowth and cocci if they were chicks. Sending the birds to the lab gave me peace of mind and though they didn't help me go identify the vitamin deficiency problems initially, they helped me rule out disease and figure out what was going on. Having the vitamin deficiency made the birds more suceptable to cocci and bacteria and they just didnt seem to be thriving. Can't emphasize enough to send birds to be tested. If I hadn't, I probably would have just eaten all my birds and threw in the hat. But knowing it wasn't a disease allowed the discussions with the provincial vets and my own research to finally figure it all out.

I also knew for sure it was vitamins when I started treating them for the deficiency.  Most chicks recovered dramatically within days after being fed a concoction of apple mash with vitamin e, b vitamins and selenium. Some of these birds were very sick before getting the vitamines and went from sounding like your boy to acting like a normal bird in a week. 

Now my birds are super healthy and happy, they still get all those extras in the food. And switching to Top Shelf foods made a world of difference.

We do not have much for selenium in the ground.  But so far I have never had any problems with chickens over the years-these are not the first ones.  I have had all the silkies for over a year now and never had any problems. This little guy I made the mistake of buying from a swap meet. The rest all came from breeders in the area.

I'm happy for you that he's seemed to recover. 
In the meantime, the forum has once again provided a wealth of info.
Cheers.

Thank you all for your help and ides etc