This week was a reminder of the things that don't always go right when you are raising your own chickens. I have been fairly lucky in the past with my hens that I raised for egg production, but this year I tried my hand at producing meat chickens. All had been going very well until this week. One evening I came home from work and did my usual rounds of checking on the garden and the animals, feeding and watering as needed. As I briefly watched the meat chickens move around their pen I noticed that one of them seemed off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He didn't seem to want to move much and seemed to be off balance, often holding one wing down to steady him self. I know that it has been hot lately, but up until this point, none of the chickens seemed to be suffering from the heat. They all could find a shady place to hang out in the heat of the day, and I always refilled their water when I come home for lunch. He also didn't move away from me when I entered the enclosure like all of the other chickens did. He had never stood out to me as an overly friendly rooster like the little white delaware that seems to enjoy my company, so this behavior was totally a red flag for me.
I picked up the strangely cooperative young rooster and checked him over thoroughly. I looked closely at his skin and his feet looking for mites, or wounds of any kind and found none. His eyes were clear and bright and his comb was bright red, so I don't think he was anemic. He wasn't panting or having any difficulty breathing, and strangely didn't seem stressed by all the poking and prodding. His crop felt full and he was nice enough to give me a healthy looking stool sample as I examined him. He let me stretch out his wings and feel his legs and body and I noticed that he did seem a bit on the thin side. I wonder if the other chickens had been keeping him away from the food and he was weak from it. The only other thing I found when I checked him over was a couple of gouges in the skin of his comb. They didn't look fresh and there was no blood on him anywhere, so I don't think that they were a new problem. The roosters have had their little squabbles in the pen, but none of them have been overly violent and no one has been injured badly to this point.
I placed him on the ground and observed him for a while longer. He only tried to take a few steps at a time, often stepping on his own feet and still seeming off balance. He wobbled over to the feeder and proceeded to have a snack, so I knew that he still had a good appetite. The wobbly, drunken movements worried me though. I also noticed that he seemed to collapse after a few steps and just sit where he fell and didn't really seem interested in moving much. Part of me wanted to try the wait and see approach, but the little voice in the back of my head was being insistent that I isolate him from the flock in case what was causing this rooster's problems was contagious. I went inside and set up an isolation cage for him. I had a large cat carrier that fit the bill, so I put a generous layer of wood shavings in the bottom and filled up a chick feeder and waterer for him and then went back out to check on him. He had managed to get to the lowest perching spot in the enclosure and was kind of resting, but still didn't look quite right. A couple of the other chickens tried to pick on him a few times, and he offered no resistance, nor did he try to get away. He couldn't stay with the rest of the flock or they would most likely kill him eventually so inside he came. He seemed fairly cozy in this isolation cage and I covered it with a towel and left him in the kitchen where I could keep an eye on him. He never made a peep, though I did hear him eating from time to time, so he must have been comfortable enough.
While he rested in the cage, I started scouring the internet for answers for my rooster's strange behavior. Over and over again the listed symptoms pointed me to Marek's disease. Marek's disease is a virus that is common to poultry and there is no cure for them if they contract it, though they do make a vaccine for chickens to prevent it. This batch of chickens was not vaccinated, so they are automatically at higher risk to contract this virus. The sites I read stated that some chickens will develop an immunity to it by the time they are 5 months old, but these chickens are only 3 1/2 months old, so they are still at an age that is susceptible to it. I am hoping that I isolated this bird early enough that the others won't get sick too.
I let him rest overnight and checked on him again in the morning. He had hardly moved in his cage, though he had eaten half of the food I gave him. When I took him out to see how he stood, he still seemed very unbalanced and still didn't seem to want to walk more than one or two steps, still crossing his feet and hanging his wings down for balance. Marek's disease causes paralysis because it attacks the nervous system of the bird. I was wondering if I was seeing a gradual paralysis in this bird because it seemed to take great effort for him to take a few steps and he seemed to have more trouble with his right side than his left. If I left him to his own devices he generally plopped down where he stood and made no effort to get up and move, even if I urged him along. At this point I was glad that I had isolated him. I don't think that his condition had improved at all in the day and if anything he had gotten a little worse. I decided to give him one more day and to see if the vets that I work with have any idea what was causing his problem.
The next day I brought him to work with me where he spent the day in a crate watching the day's activities. He never made a sound here either, nor did he crow in the mornings like all of the other roosters that were still acting normally out in the pen. He did manage to eat more food in his little resting place, but that was about it for normal behavior still. Even at the vet's he was very docile and didn't really want to walk. Still he stood with crossed feet and drooping wings when picked up to stand, but mostly he just settled down in a heap where ever we placed him. Even the vets were suspicious that he had Marek's. They offered to give him an anti-inflammatory injection, but he didn't really seem like he was in pain to me. He didn't make a noise as everyone felt him over and didn't seem the least bit interested in moving away from anyone. He was still eating and drinking as far as I could tell. I decided to take him home and give him one more night to show any signs of improvement.
Today when I took him out of the cage he seemed even weaker despite resting alone for the past three days and having free access to food and water. I would think that for an otherwise healthy chicken, he should have been moving around much more than he was. I set him outside by the garden to see if he had any desire to walk around. He stood for a little while on his crossed feet and then sank to the ground where he stood like he was exhausted. He still pecked at the nearby vegetation, but made no movement to explore the area. At this point it didn't seem like there could be any other cause than Marek's disease. Apparently in some cases the birds will have tumors on their internal organs, or their eyes can become affected and change color. I certainly didn't want to keep this bird around my flocks any longer due to the contagiousness of the virus. I will be watching the meat bird flock very closely for any other strange acting birds. I hope than none of them come down with it.
I decided to dispatch the bird and then do a necropsy to the best of my ability. I have seen many surgeries on dogs and cats, so I had a pretty good idea what healthy organs should look like. I closely examined his skin and feathers, looking for any signs of old bruising or injury and found none. There was very little fat on this bird I had noticed and overall he seemed a bit on the thin side. I don't know if that was just due to his age, or if he hadn't been eating enough for a little while. I examined his crop which was full of his chicken feed and some of the plant material that he had recently eaten. I ran his intestines and every thing looked normal, no tumors or blockages. The gizzard was full too, but all looked like normally digesting food. The kidneys looked normal also, though one of them may have been a little rounder than normal. I haven't seen what bird kidneys look like very often, so I don't have a good reference for that. The liver looked normal and was uniform in color with no tumors or lesions. The heart and the lungs looked normal as well. None of the bones were broken or felt out of place. I could find no physical explanation for why this bird was behaving the way it was.
Sadly this has become a lesson learned for me. I hope I get off easy and don't lose any more birds in this flock. Next time I order chicks, I will make sure that I opt for vaccinated birds to save myself the possible trouble in the future.
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