Mareks Disease

The chickens are all doing well, with one notable exception. One of our last brood of chickens was found in the chicken run, unable to stand and very listless. She went into the brooder for a couple of weeks and was still unable to stand. Going through a couple of diagnostic observations, we saw that the chicken was not injured and did not have any unusual faeces. The chicken was not breathing poorly and her eyes were clear. The most likely diagnosis is a condition known as Mareks disease. Mareks (MDV) is a herpes virus that most often affects chickens up to 5 months of age and can present as sciatic nerve damage showing as lameness in one or more of the limbs, or as tumours growing in the skin and organs of the bird. She had never really been very steady on her feet and, as she grew, her hips were less and less able to support her. In the brooder, she found it very difficult to stand and would often lurch from one end of the brooder to the other in search of food. In the end, it was cruel to let her suffer like this so she was put down. Now with a second chick showing similar signs, I believe that our conclusion that MDV is the likely cause is more confident.
We decided that our chickens would not be table fowl, so when we were faced with dispatching a chicken, the only sensible thing to do was to put her down as humanely as possible and then dispose of the corpse. Some people may disagree with me, but to my mind, this means decapitation. The chicken is dead very quickly and does not suffer for more than a second. It still feels very crappy.