The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching
Sudden comb growth, 3y/o hen
Beth C:
Sorry to hear that you lost her, but perhaps with what you learn from the necropsy, she will make a contribution to poultry medicine. You may want to bounce some of your findings off Dr. Greg Burkett (http://www.thebirdvet.com/). He's a board certified avian vet up in Durham, a really nice guy. I've taken my parrots to him, since there is no avian vet down this way. I don't know if he does anything with poultry, although he did give a presentation to our pheasant & waterfowl club a few years ago, but he would likely find this interesting none the less.
dak:
I have spoke on the phone with Dr. Morishita (?SP) in, CA that has articles in the Poultry Press, and I believe they have added a poultry vet at CSU, but hands on is always better. I wish it wasn't so costly to run various virology and histopath testing.
I also wish the exhibition poultry industry would lobby for a Mareks vaccine in smaller dosing units. Seems like there are enough smaller breeders to make it worthwhile for a company to make it available.
Mike Gilbert:
Clare, the Marek's vaccine isn't that expensive when you split the wafer and diluent into four parts. It takes a narrow bladed knife to reach into the bottle to split the wafer. I've been doing it for many years.
John:
--- Quote ---It takes a narrow bladed knife to reach into the bottle to split the wafer.
--- End quote ---
The newer bottles are much smaller than the old ones and I've given up on splitting the wafers. This year I went thru a new unit for each hatch and as you all know it wasn't cheap.
Beth C:
I use a large needle to break mine, but I've yet to get them even remotely even. I have very small hatches, I'm giving no where near the 500 doses that 1/4 of a bottle would treat, more like 25-50, and I only use as much dilutant as I need for the number of doses I'm doing, so they should be getting plenty, and knock on wood so far it seems to be working. It would be a huge help if they'd just sell the vaccine w/o the dilutant. That's what makes this particular vaccine so expensive, the cost of shipping that gargantuan bottle (the last couple time I bought from Twin City, it's come in bags, that's a little better), and I always throw out half of it.
That said, I agree with you, Clare. It's a matter of getting people to use the vaccine, and the simpler they make it, the more people will use it. And it seems like it would be profitable to the company, since they'll charge 1/2 the price for 1/4 of the dose. But the mentality is if you don't have 2000 birds, you aren't a "real" poultry operation and you're not worth their time. ::)
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