Quarantine: how I kept the hens safe from Marek's

This article relates the story of the hens' encounter with Marek's disease and it shares an apparently successful approach to quarantine. The time between exposure to Marek's and breaking quarantine was two months. If your flock is going through Marek's, maybe this article will help you work out what to do. It's only a 5 minute read.

To expand the flock after some losses, I set out to purchase a trio of pullets. I identified a breeder who'd won awards at the big agricultural show (for any Aussies reading, it was the Adelaide Royal) and brought home 3 pullets who I put into the spare coop for quarantine: Bernadette the Marans, Agnes the Australorp, and Sarah the Brahma.

Quarantine turned out to be one of my better moves.

After a few days, I noticed Bernadette had an unusual gait and pupil. I took a video of her gait and took all three of them to the vet for checking. The vet took one look at the video and said, "Yes, that's Marek's."

A feeling of dread settled over me because I love the hens and was very worried about them. But, thanks in part to an apparently successful quarantine strategy, today they're in the clear.

The basic principle is that it was OK for me to carry the hens' dander to the pullets, but it was NOT OK for me to carry the pullets' dander to the hens.

Here's the strategy, which I hope will help other people. I've laid it out as set up and method.

The set up:

1. I had a separate coop ready to use. In previous years, before the separate coop was available, I used the sleepout or laundry for quarantining.
2. It's about 7 metres from the other hens' coop and run. I would prefer if it were further away because the recommended distance is 9 metres. I'm considering moving it to an entirely different part of the garden, but as only vaccinated chicks and pullets will be joining the flock in future, perhaps it can stay put.
3. I dedicated an old pair of gardening clogs to the pullets' coop and changed into them before stepping in. I kept the clogs beside their coop and threw them out once it was all over.
4. I kept the wheelie bin beside their coop so I wouldn't have to walk across the backyard carrying waste and possibly spreading contaminated dander.
5. For the duration of the quarantine, of course the hens were confined to their run and the pullets were confined to their coop and the small run around it. No chickens were able to approach the other chickens' living area.

The method:

1. In the mornings before my shower, the pullets' coop was cleaned out and their water and feed replenished.
2. I wore silicon gloves for all the pullets' chores, which were disposed of daily, in a small but airtight bin bag, with their poop and any feathers that had dropped overnight.
3. Immediately after doing the pullets' chores, I put my clothes in a 90C hot wash with laundry detergent because detergent breaks down viruses, rendering them harmless, so they can be washed away in the wastewater without any fear of contaminating wild birds who might come into contact with the water.
4. I showered immediately after putting the clothes in the wash.
5. If I had to be at work early and didn't have time to do everything properly, well, the chores were not done until the next day because controlling the spread of dander was more important than fresh water. However, this meant each time I did the pullets' chores I topped up all their feeders and changed their water so they always had enough for more than a couple of days.
6. In the evenings, I did the hens' chores, hopefully free from contaminated dander.

This method meant the pullets were cared for in a way that reduced (and perhaps even prevented) contamination of the main coop and run.

Once I had the quarantine routine established, I began to think about testing because I needed to know if it had spread. While the tests are not 100% certain, I considered testing far, far better than not knowing.

Sadly, Bernadette's symptoms worsened, so she was euthanised after a couple of weeks.

Within the existing flock there was a young hen called Melissa who had arrived as a chick and had been living with the hens for a few months. She was tested for Marek's and got a negative. My thinking was that if the older hens had pre-existing Marek's disease, they would have passed it to Melissa in the months she had been living with them. So her negative result meant the older hens most likely didn't have Marek's disease.

Agnes developed symptoms that worsened, so she was euthanised a few weeks after Bernadette.

Sarah hadn't developed symptoms, so she was tested for Marek's and, amazingly, was negative. This indicated Bernadette and Agnes had the least virulent Marek's pathotype, and that Sarah had had an incredibly lucky escape!

Today, quarantine is no longer necessary and Sarah is trying to merge with the older hens. It's going to take a good long while, but she'll get there in the end, as they all do.

I could rush integration by putting her on the roost with the others after dark, but that would heighten stress and stress causes viruses to flare up, and I'd rather not go through another Marek's outbreak. So, given the tiny chance Marek's is still present, it's best if I try to keep stress to a minimum and therefore, the integration will be ongoing for as long as it takes the hens to work it out for themselves.

If you've had a sudden Marek's contamination, feel free to reach out and I'll share some further details.

Here's Sarah the white Brahma.




Many thanks to @RoyalChick and @BY Bob for their thoughtful editorial suggestions.