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Author Topic: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.  (Read 14160 times)

StephB

  • Joined Feb 2010
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #30 on: January 09, 2012, 06:26:05 pm »
A friend has just suggested waiting to see if some survive and then incubating a new flock from what is left and then they will all be resistant to this particular Mareks strain.

Guess that all depends if the cock and a hen survive.  :-\
Living on a 6 acre smallholding in Dorset.
Jersey cow, Aberdeen Angus cattle, small flock of Poll Dorset x sheep, Occasional weaner pigs, Geese, ducks and hens.
Polytunnel / Veg plot.

jaykay

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Cumbria/N Yorks border
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #31 on: January 09, 2012, 06:35:46 pm »
That's a possibility - and I suppose you can buy in vaccinated stock if you want to buy more.

little blue

  • Joined Jun 2009
  • Derbyshire
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #32 on: January 09, 2012, 06:47:01 pm »
sorry to hear that Steph, at least you know what it is.
Good luck in whatever you decide to do. :)
Little Blue

Victorian Farmer

  • Guest
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #33 on: January 09, 2012, 06:47:25 pm »
Iv done all that has been said the onley way with Chickins is to get vacinated stock ,the same with chicks all good for 3 moths and bang lost 1 or 2 it's a bad thing when you love youre stock .I would say that all you do won't be enough.iff you get a very cold spell for 1 or 2 weeks minus 5 to minus 10 and a damp couple off weeks ,that would do more good than Eney think you could doo.you need stock that has been vacinated for all 5 things I do hope that itt sorts ,iff you came to me I would vacinate the rest off the stock ,they would live or die but iff they lived all the good ,some off my stock could not be replaced ,a dog killed 2 off the hens you could not get hens as good I bought them for 50 pound each they was treated ass good as the kids so it hurts all the best.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2012, 07:13:57 pm by Victorian Farmer »

StephB

  • Joined Feb 2010
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #34 on: January 09, 2012, 07:19:48 pm »
Thanks for your replies all, will have a chat to hubby tnight and make a decision.  Got a feeling it might be cull and start again.

Thanks again
Lv Steph xx
Living on a 6 acre smallholding in Dorset.
Jersey cow, Aberdeen Angus cattle, small flock of Poll Dorset x sheep, Occasional weaner pigs, Geese, ducks and hens.
Polytunnel / Veg plot.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #35 on: January 09, 2012, 10:00:22 pm »
A friend has just suggested waiting to see if some survive and then incubating a new flock from what is left and then they will all be resistant to this particular Mareks strain.
I know nothing about immunity in chickens so these could be stupid questions.  Does the above imply that the parental resistance would be passed to the chick through the egg?  And would such passive immunity give lifelong protection, or would the chick develop its own immunity through exposure to the virus while protected by the passive immunity from the parents? 
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

jaykay

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Cumbria/N Yorks border
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #36 on: January 09, 2012, 10:14:10 pm »
Mmmm - I think it would be more that the chicks would be exposed early and themselves either die or survive but you'd have perhaps bred from stock that had some resistance to Mareks as they themselves had lived. I don't know of any mechanism of hens passing immunity to chicks.

And you learn something everyday  :) It seems hens do pass antibodies into the yolk Passive immunity in chicks So I suppose the chicks will be protected initially and perhaps therefore able to build up their own immunity as the passive dwindles - so perhaps not getting ill? As well as coming from stock with some resistance.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2012, 10:36:04 pm by jaykay »

Victorian Farmer

  • Guest
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #37 on: January 10, 2012, 11:21:17 am »
You can get medicated chick crumbs that will stop the death off young chicks iff you vacicenate marek's vaccinations are highly effective when done correctly. The vaccine is not nearly as effective if the bird has already been exposed to the disease, so it is important that it is done as early as possible.

Other diseases that you may consider vaccinating chickens for include:

Infectious Laryngotracheitis
Pox
Newcastle's Disease
Infectious Bronchitis
Mycoplasmosis
Avian Flu.          Link for vacccines     http://www.happychicks.co.uk/mall/departmentpage.cfm/Happychicksshop/_317130/1/Poultry%252C%2520Chicken%2520Vaccines
So sneezing coughing is a mother that is hard to get rid off and iff you do all this you could still lose 1 or 2 iff the stock has a good immune system 3 or 5 years of age This is the stock to use for breeding strong chicks .
« Last Edit: January 10, 2012, 12:10:45 pm by Victorian Farmer »

chrismahon

  • Joined Dec 2011
  • Gascony, France
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #38 on: January 10, 2012, 08:10:59 pm »
Just to reply to Jaykay's point about paralysis being daignostic of Mareks. The most common cause of paralysis is lymphoid lucosis. Mareks is regularly mis-diagnosed based on that alone. Exactly the same happened to the Practical Poultry flock 6 months ago. LL happens in isolation, apparently caused by a virus, but triggered by stress. The virus is so widespread it is best to assume all chickens have it. So if you have a case of paralysis the prudent thing is to diagnose it as Mareks, as that needs an immediate quarantine reaction. But if no more birds are lost it was probably LL. We've had one definite and two possibles -all isolated incidents. They all had paralysis at some stage. There is a new strain of Mareks I've been told about in the Lincoln area which doesn't have much paralysis at all and immunised birds are affected as well. Not heard any more since 2010.

Complex little creatures chickens. Quite fragile but highly evolved. Love our to bits.

Have you reached a decision yet Steph?

dizzy1pig

  • Joined Jan 2010
  • Leuchars, Fife
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #39 on: January 10, 2012, 08:28:24 pm »
I was also thinking of liming the ground in the orchard, not sure if that will help, but it can't hurt.

None of the geese or ducks appear ill so will have to chance that, and hope they do not carry it.

Think it might be kinder to put all of the chickens out of their misery, lime the orchard, find a very powerful disinfectant for the coops and then restock in the Spring.

Is that what you guys would do.?

off on a tangent here

just watch the ph in your orchard for  the fruit trees

StephB

  • Joined Feb 2010
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #40 on: January 10, 2012, 09:26:53 pm »
Oh heck dizzy1pig, I hadn't thought about the effect that the lime might have on the fruit trees.  Have had enough problems with leaf curl and rabbits eating the bark without me killing them off with lime  ::).  Will have to red into that. 

When did life get sooo complicated  >:(

i spoke to a local man today who breeds poultry and sells to the public.  He sells vaccinated hybrids and also sometimes has some vaccinated pure bred hens, he has some legbars that are vaccinated at the moment.

He has advised me to wait it out....until the deaths stop.  if i have any left he reckons I do not need to cull them, just disinfect with virkon, buy in new vaccinated stock, keep them separate from the old ones for a few months, just so that if anything is remaining in the ground or coops then they only get mild exposure and then look to introduce them all together after a few months.

Not sure if its a fail proof plan, but it sounds like a good plan.

I gave the hens some probiotic yogurt today as have read it helps with diarrhea, I got two eggs from them today, but one of them has a pale comb so I don't think the deaths are over yet.

The Coxoid I ordered arrived today, and can't decide whether to treat them with it or not.  Doubt it could do any harm.?

Sorry for waffling.
Steph xx
Living on a 6 acre smallholding in Dorset.
Jersey cow, Aberdeen Angus cattle, small flock of Poll Dorset x sheep, Occasional weaner pigs, Geese, ducks and hens.
Polytunnel / Veg plot.

jaykay

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Cumbria/N Yorks border
Re: Mystery Chicken Illness - Post Mortem Result in.
« Reply #41 on: January 10, 2012, 09:31:19 pm »
Sounds like a plan  :)  :thumbsup:

Yes, if your current chooks have diarrhoea, I'd treat them with Coxoid. That way they're only fighting the Mareks, not dealing with high numbers of coccidia too - will give them a better chance to get over the Mareks, if they can.

 

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