This sounds so exciting starting over in a way in a whole new location. It'd be maddening though to have to start changing shoes/pants between "villages." I saw long sleeve poly blend healthcare scrubs on clearance at Walmart yesterday. I'd think this is what I'd do, and get oversized ones so they're easy on, easy off.I guess it's time for an update. Since my last post I have had 1 symptomatic cockerel who we ended up culling just a couple weeks ago. Out of my 14 silkies, I have now lost 2 cockerels and 6 pullets. It is so hard knowing there's nothing I can do to fix them and make them better. I've been focusing on nutrition, I found the organic feed I was using was low on vitamins so they are now on a more complete feed with poultry cell crumbles, immune support herbs and baicilin. They do not like their additives, but I'm hoping they help. I have just 2 pullets remaining who are laying very well, they're doing an egg a day, 6 days a week. The one pullet has started laying smaller eggs the last two weeks, I'm not sure if that means anything or not.
I set a ton of eggs late January, of my silkies, 17 eggs hatched, a whopping 12 chicks were from my chocolate frizzle pullet! I also hatched 3 layer cross chicks from my laying flock. I also hatched 5 silkies from shipped eggs, and a few other chicks from a local breeder. Everyone got the Mareks vaccine and I am hopeful for their health and longevity!
I had a lot of extra silkie hatching eggs so when @Debbie292d mentioned she would be setting eggs a few weeks back, the eggies got excited and jumped in a box to go find a warm incubator! To be safe, I sanitized all the packing materials with Odoban, including dipping the eggs BEFORE shipping so this is a really interesting test. So far Debbie292d had one egg she has removed and a few that are questionable at the day 7 candling.
I will be setting more eggs this Saturday, some from Debbie292d, over 2 dozen silkies from my girls, and 2 dozen layers from my flock, plus some more from the local breeder. The testing with Odoban continues to see if hatching eggs can be safely dipped, rinsed, and hatched. So far it seems very promising.
I had noticed the necropsy did not have Mareks actually tested for, so I had a sample sent out for PCR testing, and it came back positive. I have sample collection kits heading my way to be able to do PCR testing on about 6 individuals from my various groups of chickens. Since I've had Mareks diagnosed, my indoor brooded chicks have remained indoors. I'm hopeful they will be negative, they are vaccinated but they were vaccinated at 1 week and 8 weeks old. I also will be testing 1 bird each from my layer coops, it will be interesting to see the results and help me plan my flocks future better.
I do have a new coop, in a new area, all the indoor chicks will be moving out to as soon as the run is complete.
I didn't know you had to vaccinate them twice or that it was even a thing. Is the second one like a booster to the first, so they are even more resilient to Mareks?