Poultry Keepers Podcast
Welcome to The Poultry Keepers Podcast
Cluck, Chat, and Rule the Roost! One Egg-cellent Episode at a Time!
At The Poultry Keepers Podcast, we’re building a friendly, informative, and inspiring space for today’s small-flock poultry keepers. Whether you're a seasoned pro with decades of experience or just beginning your backyard chicken journey, you’ve found your community. Here, poultry isn’t just a hobby—it’s a way of life.
Each episode is packed with practical, science-based information to help you care for your flock with confidence. From hatching eggs and breeding strategies to flock health, nutrition, housing, and show prep—we cover it all with insight and heart.
Hosted by Rip Stalvey, Mandelyn Royal, and John Gunterman, our show brings together over 70 years of combined poultry experience. We believe in the power of shared knowledge and the importance of accuracy, offering trusted content for poultry keepers who want to do right by their birds.
So pull up a perch and join us each week as we cluck, chat, and rule the roost—one egg-cellent episode at a time.
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Poultry Keepers Podcast
Poultry Health Master Class-Part 3
In Part 3 of the Poultry Health Master Class on The Poultry Keepers Podcast, hosts Carey Blackmon and Jeff Mattocks continue their deep dive into poultry health, exploring the causes, symptoms, and management of some of the most common ailments affecting flocks today. This educational episode covers Marek’s disease, gout, bumblefoot, rickets, nutritional deficiencies, and chronic respiratory disease (CRD)—each explained with clarity and real-world experience that backyard and small-flock keepers can trust.
You’ll learn how stress and environment influence disease outbreaks, what hidden factors make Marek’s difficult to identify, and why gout and bumblefoot are often preventable with proper management and diet. Carey and Jeff also explain how to spot early signs of vitamin and mineral imbalances, recognize curled toes and rickets, and understand the role of necropsy in getting accurate answers when birds decline unexpectedly.
Whether you’re raising backyard layers, show birds, or dual-purpose flocks, this episode will give you practical insights to strengthen your flock’s health through better management, nutrition, and prevention.
Subscribe to The Poultry Keepers Podcast for more expert-led discussions on poultry management, breeding, and nutrition. Visit www.thepoultrykeeperspodcast.com to listen now, plus the complete episode archives and resources for small flock success.
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Welcome to the Poultry Keepers Podcast, where we give you the information you need to succeed. In this episode Carey Blackmon and Jeff Mattocks continue their Poultry Health Master Class with Part three. So, let's jump right in and begin this discussion with Mereks Disease. Let's just start with probably the most controversial poultry disease
Speaker 2:out there. Which one? Which one are there? Okay. See to you, there's only like, okay, so we,
Speaker:we covered co acidosis last time, which is one of the ones. So let's talk about Mareks
Speaker 2:That's pretty much everywhere and yeah, they won't admit that it's vertically transmitted.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2:anyway, yeah, go ahead. So where do you want, where do you want to go with that?
Speaker:Alright, so there's I and body Ways to Tell, but first all, what, what is merits?
Speaker 2:It is a virus that affects primarily the nervous system and the nerves and the bird, right. It, it causes nerves to shut down and it, you know, um, it'll give you tumor looking growth. And, but yeah, I mean, it's a, I didn't say what you're looking for. I'm sure I didn't, but it's a, it's a neurological, you know.
Speaker:So do they have like a, a twitch?
Speaker 2:I've never seen a twitch. How do you, how do you know? How do you know
Speaker:when they have it?
Speaker 2:Well, some people go by the eye and there's a couple forms of merricks, right? So they don't always display the same, right? I cannot personally tell you that I have seen a 100% conclusive that I have seen a. The ocular observation, right? So in, in my line of work doing necropsies, I always verify it with either enlarged, uh, nerves. Usually the easy one to get to is the sciatic nerve and the leg, right? Um, and often, you know, you'll see a bird that is laying over a lame, um, with one leg paralyzed, usually one leg. Right. I mean, really severe. They usually don't live long enough to have both legs paralyzed, but Hmm. Okay. Okay. Normally I'll see one, you know, with, um, and I don't know why, but it, it seems to affect the right leg first in, in the cases that I've seen personally. Right. It, it, it appears to be the right leg, you know, for the bird. So, okay. So
Speaker:maybe it's, maybe it starts in their left brain.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Uh, dunno. So, yeah, and like when I do the necropsy, you know, um, you know, I'll just go right to that leg. You know, if, if, if the bird was alive and I dispatched it right then I'll go right to that leg, I'll go to that right leg.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm. Um,
Speaker 2:and I'll open that skin up and then I use something, um, dull, like, uh, something like a tongue depressor. Or I don't use a knife, right?'cause I don't wanna, and I'll pull the muscles apart, layer by layer.
Speaker:What if you had a butter knife?
Speaker 2:That would work. That would work.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker 2:Most butter knives will work. So I pullet apart, you know, each muscle. I pullet back right? One at a time. I'm separating the muscles, working my way down to the bone.'cause the sciatic nerve lays down there. Just, just, you know, next to the bone. And I'm looking for that. Um, it's pretty easy to see, you know, it's a thick white string. Um, it, it, when it, when it's healthy, it'll be kind of a milky white. It'll be semi translucent, milky white, not a bright white. Mm-hmm. Um, okay. In. So I've seen it display two different ways. One was, uh, so I've seen perpendicular rings around that nerve, right? Looked really weird, you know, like, I don't know the right term. Um, striations, if you will, something like that. Uh, it's generally enlarged. It'll be twice. Its eyes are bigger. But I've also seen, I've also seen the brown, reddish brown tumor growing on that nerve. So that's in the bird with leg paralysis. Now when I see the bird that just sits there all hunched up, um, looking like it's sleeping, doesn't want to move, that sort of thing when I've done the knee, yeah, those birds, I'll find the tumor inside the body, cavity along the spine. So, and those are almost always, um, you know, that dark, reddish, brown, you know, um, tumor growing and they're somewhat attached to that spine. Right. And they're working on that main spinal cord. Mm-hmm. But, um, those are the two ways that I've seen it more. Like in a meat bird, I'll see it in the leg, usually first, and then hands, um. You know, I would see it more in the back. Now. I, I've seen two or three odds tumors all
Speaker:over the place.
Speaker 2:Huh?
Speaker:In meat birds, you never know where you're gonna see a tumor with them.
Speaker 2:Not
Speaker:really,
Speaker 2:you know, I rarely see a whole lot of tumors in there. Occasionally I've seen liver tumors, but they're, they're rare. Um, but, you know, in, in like our birds, I would. I would think it also depends on kind of on age, when you're seeing Mareks at younger ages, like 14, 16 weeks, I think you're gonna see it in the leg. And then if you're talking about birds that are 2, 3, 4 years old, I think you're gonna probably see the tumors up inside the body cavity along the spine. Right.
Speaker:Um, now let me ask this. If you see it in a 12 week old chicken. What are the chances that that chicken's mother has it and it's suppressed? Okay. So a dormant, whatever you wanna call it.
Speaker 2:Okay. So scientifically speaking. Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker 2:According to all of academia out there, marck is not transmissible through the egg, so it's not vertical, um, in a flock. Yeah. I personally, this is only my personal beliefs, so don't shoot me, but I, I disagree because it is, it, it appears to be everywhere, right? Um, I don't know. I, I don't know if I've honestly seen a flock that I would tell you is a hundred percent, you know, merricks free. Um, it, it just seems to be, it, it is so prevalent in the poultry world that I, I. I, so,
Speaker:so about a year ago, you and I got to go to a farm together and, and do look at it and check some things out for'em. And, um, they had a whole boatload of chickens that just itched signs of merricks.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker:But I mean, they were, they were all still laying.
Speaker 2:I, I don't usually see a huge depression in egg production. I mean, you know, 10 to 20%, like the average, like this, the, the average small flock owner would not notice that, right. So, yeah. You know, if they've got 12 hands and they're getting eight eggs a day. They think they're doing pretty good, right? Right. When they probably should be getting 10 eggs or more a day. Um, so people aren't gonna miss necessarily 20%. Yeah. And that's typically what I see. So on the egg laying side, I, I don't see it.
Speaker 4:Um,
Speaker 2:um, you know, I don't see it being, you know, uh, affecting total eggs laid. So, yeah, so I sue, I get it. It's a virus and it, you know, it has to be, I, that's what everything science says, right? Um, I, I get it. But you know, like Mycoplasm and some of those are transferrable through the egg and they're also virus. So I, I don't know. I'm not, I'm just, I just shared my personal belief that I think it is passed, but, um, they're never gonna be,
Speaker:I can tell you what I've seen. Um, I was able to get access to research gait because my wife was doing some research while she was, um, finishing up her doctorate and no, I don't call her Dr. Blackman on a regular basis. I do have her get a really funny look when I do, but, so I started reading about it. From what I can see, the reason why they say that is because they have taken eggs from hens that know they knew they had merricks to a completely separate facility, sanitized the eggs, put them in a sanitized incubator, and they did not have merits when they came out. I guess they drew blood, I don't know. But within. One study was two weeks of being put back with a mother. They have it, so that's why they say it's not in the egg, but I'm like you, like in the real world where we live and have chickens, when that chick pops out, it's got merits because it's exposed to it from the mom.
Speaker 2:You would think so, unless whether it
Speaker:came through or not. Well,
Speaker 2:I mean, if it, it is everybody sanitizing their eggs before they go in the incubator, right?
Speaker:Well, no, not everybody. And then, I mean, I've had people tell me that I was ridiculous and that that was the dumbest thing that I should ever do, that I should leave the bloom on it. Well, I mean, I'm sanitizing the freaking thing. Yeah. And you know. It, it could take a stressor to activate
Speaker 2:it. Well, okay, so Sue is spot on with this, right? Yep. So again, correlating with my experience only, right? I don't see Merricks in really high end managed flocks that that. You know, are living basically without stress. Right? Very harmonious. You know, life is good. Um, you know, they got good living conditions, they got good living quarters, all that. So yeah, I, uh, I agree. You know, it, it takes a stress factor to Yeah. Make it flare up or show up. Uh, and I think it's hidden in, you know, unfortunately I think it's hidden in a lot of our flocks that, you know, one time.
Speaker:One time I told somebody, I was like, if your bird has that, it's a management issue. It's not. It is not. Anything else.
Speaker 2:You done pissed him off.
Speaker:Look man, hey, you know, I was, you know how sometimes you're just in that, in that mood where today's not the day and I'm sorry, but if you ask me a question, it won't be sugarcoated, but I will give you the a truthful answer like I will any other day. Oh, well, they caught me on that day and I'm like, look, you're, you're not like
Speaker 2:that.
Speaker:Come on,
Speaker 2:you're good at sugarcoating.
Speaker:You know, if I'm in the right mood and I care. But like, so I, there's all the controversy around this and I've spent some time with a friend of mine who is a poultry doctor. Like this person teaches at a university. Has studied poultry for like 30 years, and she explained to me the easiest way to explain it is it's like the herpes virus. It can be dormant. You can have a normal life. Everything's fine and dandy. You get a stressor, you start seeing symptoms, the stressor goes away. You may or may not continue to see symptoms like it's just a thing. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I can never thought about it like that, but Makes
Speaker 2:sense. All of your viral diseases. Right. Um, you know, like your new castles, your Mars, all of your viral diseases will, will kind of live in a hidden place mm-hmm. Within the body. And given, uh, the right stressful conditions, it'll flare up.
Speaker 4:You know, like
Speaker 2:I've had flocks with Newcastle's disease and every time we'd get a major snowstorm or you know, a bunch of rain thunderstorms, things like that, anything that kind of stressed the bird out. Mm-hmm. We'd see a flare up, we'd have mor a spike in mortality and a decrease in egg delay. And then, you know, after a week or so, it goes right back down again. Right. So again, I recently
Speaker:had a problem like that at my place. Um, I had some coyotes, which they're in the woods, but I had some get really close within a hundred yards. And, um. The, my dogs got ahold of one, one night and a couple nights later. There may have been a night scope involved. I'm not sure. I, I, there, it was a huge problem and that I, I had a bird that like, I don't know if it had a heart attack or what, but it just popped over. I opened it up, no issues, which, I mean, if I hadn't have found it that way, I would've probably ate it. That's how good it looked on the inside. But egg production has went to crap, so yeah, they thought coyotes were gonna get'em, so that was a stressor. And you know, the egg production went down and everything else, so. Yep. Yeah. And
Speaker 2:you know, they, they're like any other creature, stress is going to, you know, do do serious things to'em. Right. Just same as you or I. So it's, it's just, yeah. And, you know, and, and I've been to farms where people have, you know, overzealous, you know, border collies or yapping dogs and stuff like that, that don't live with the bird. Right, like, like your dogs stay out in the yard with the chickens all the time, so they're part of the normal environment. Mm-hmm. But you know, you know those infrequent visits. From a dog that they haven't seen before and gets really excited when it sees chicken, right? Thinking dinner. Um.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You know, I, bad things happen. I, I've seen it from screaming toddlers. You know, people, people come visit, you know, somebody's chicken farm, you know, and they got two or three kids that, you know, uh, like to say everything at the top of their lungs and shriek and shrill and all that. They don't get out much. Chickens don't deal with that very well, right? No. So look, there's a lot of things that are stressful to'em that aren't to us, but you know, they're not us, so, yeah.
Speaker:All right. So what causes gout in chickens?
Speaker 2:Um, gout. Typical gout, right? You know, it's never always. The same thing. I mean, but the most two common, um, causes that I've seen from gout are feeding too high of a level of protein for too long. Okay? And you start to get that uric acid buildup in the, in the lower joints. Um, and in those cases, you'll tend to see a bird doing a, what do we call a high step? I mean, it could just start out, you know, looking like a lameness issue. Mm-hmm. But some will take this over exaggerated, like really high step and step forward, reach forward with it. Right. So where the leg is coming up almost 90 degrees from the other leg.
Speaker:And like a Tennessee walking horse.
Speaker 2:Yes. Okay. So, um, you know, high stepping is one of the symptoms,
Speaker 4:you know, I mean,
Speaker 2:just, oh, you know, lameness in general can be where the bird doesn't wanna walk, but I, I hate to use that one because there's other diseases like Rio virus. Yeah. Um, that loads up in that hawk joint and that's a whole other thing. Right. Um. That can cause a bird to sit all the way back on its butt, right? Not leg, not not feet and legs under it, but sits all the way back on its butt and the feet will be somewhat forward coming out the front of the bird. Right. So that's, that's completely different than gout. But gout, yeah, will usually it's triggered by either excessive protein or excessive calcium. So for a lot of the people who like to feed layer feed. Continually like year round to the males and the, to the hands and the roosters and the cock rolls, um, they're taking their chances. Okay? So now when you combine them where you have a protein level higher than the bird actually needs and excessive amounts of calcium, the two will be, can be very antagonistic inside that bird. Right. So you just kinda setting them up for failure all at the same time. Right. You know, with two different things. So, but gout typically, uh, too much protein for too long and, or too much calcium, you know. Um, but then I'll see it more in the cocks and the roosters than I was in the hands. Okay. Because she can replenish the calcium. She has a place to go with the calcium back to her bone mass. Right? Mm-hmm. And, and her body knows what to do with it better than a, an a rooster or a Cockrell. So, uh, yeah, protein, protein, calcium.
Speaker:So like from what I can also see that uric acid, that once you see that or hear it or smell it or whatever. Yeah. That's how you know for sure that the protein is working on the kidneys because it's not processing it and cleaning it out. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, the kidneys can only take so much. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, um, and then kind of depends on the form of protein. Um,
Speaker 4:you know,
Speaker 2:and you know me, I like to have a variety of proteins, right? So, sure. You know, like. If I can get'em, I like some roasted soybeans and if I can get it, I'd like to have some peas in there. And I like to have a meat protein in there, right? So I'm coming at it from two or three different angles. The more forms of protein that I can realistically put into a feed, the better, the healthier the bird's gonna be, right? Because yeah, it breaks down at different places in the digestive tract and it enters the bloodstream at different times and you know, and, and all this. Makes it easier for the kidneys to process any extra or unnecessary, you know, protein, but Got it. It's not realistic for everybody. Okay.
Speaker:What about, um, Bumblefoot?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just, you just, you're bringing me right in there on, I want to piss people off. I know what you're doing. You're leading me here.'cause Bumblefoot is 100% environmental. Okay.
Speaker:I mean, people, nothing. People ask all these questions all the time. I know so far bit for me to want to get them a real answer.
Speaker 2:You know, Bumblefoot is, uh, where I see it the most is if the bird's been walking in wet. Um, like a heavily mand muddy area, heavily mand or muddy. And then when the bedding is like wood chips, um, or something sharp, but typically it's wood chips or people that like to use the extra large pine shavings, like the really big ones'cause they like how fluffy they're, but um. When the sole of the, when the pad or the sole of the foot gets soft from being in moisture, right? It's easy to be penetrated from the environment by a splinter or poked by a piece of wire, whatever, right? But you have to have an external opening from the environment. You have to have a skin break. Okay. For that bacteria to get in there and start the infection within the footed. And that's bumblefoot. So
Speaker:let's see. Ah, here we go. What causes rye neck?
Speaker 2:There's two things that can cause a right neck. Uh, the most common. That we believe in is thiamine deficiency, right? Which is one, the B one I believe. I don't have all them memorized yet. I'm pretty sure it's B one, but a B one deficiency, uh, whether the feed doesn't have enough in it, remember it's a B vitamin. So B vitamins are often the, uh. Um, the first one's to get oxidized off. So this is where the fresh feed concept comes into play, right? Even if it was added to a feed, um, you know, after 90 days, it's anybody's guess how much thi still in there? Inactive B vitamins are at the upper end of cost. As a person who makes vitamin blends, yes, they're your, your B vitamins are very expensive, so. Yeah. Almost nobody puts in extra Right to help keep those costs down. And so, you know, fresh Feed, actually read your tag and make sure that the thiamine, uh, monohydrate or thiamine, something had been added to it to begin with. Not all of'em have it, right? Yeah, they really don't. Not all feeds don't add it.
Speaker:They're
Speaker 2:not all
Speaker:created
Speaker 2:equal. No, no. Um, we've, we've talked about feed enough on the show that, you know, people should know that by now.
Speaker:Yeah. Uh, well, since, since you bring that up, um, what about malnutrition? I mean, we all know what causes that, but what are some of the symptoms and or signs and how do you know, hey, uh, that that mix that I pulled outta the air is not working?
Speaker 2:It's hard to see it. I mean, you know, the easy one to see is rickets, which is your vitamin D and your calcium deficiencies. Mm-hmm. And you'll see that in the birds, usually like, uh, in, in that day, 10 to day 25, depends on the breed, but you'll see it pretty early in life. And the bird will be kind of bow-legged, won't wanna walk unfortunately. Rickets, which is a, a malnutrition. It is too often diagnosed as co acidosis because you get that ruffled feather look. You know the unkept look right, and you know their legs are a little bit weak and they're not okay. So they're not getting to the feeder at that point the way they should. They probably eating something off the litter just to eat for the sake of eating. Right. Um, you know, then you get a little bit of Roni manure or something like that, you know, oh my God, it's co IDocs. Pour the cord down their throat, get it out, get it out. Come on, let's go. Right? And, uh, but yeah. Um, rickets, you know, the other ones are not easy to see. I mean, niacin deficiency, which would be under the malnutrition, you're gonna get curly toes, right? So the toes will just kinda curl up. And not be straight. They'll curl up, sometimes curl under. Mm-hmm. And you can see a bird kinda walking on their knuckles, you know, for a little while. But again, these happen really, really early in life. Right?
Speaker:Um,
Speaker 2:usually, yeah. And a
Speaker:lot of people, a lot of people confuse that with problems in the, the hatcher. Um, if, if the humidity is off in your hatcher, that chick's gonna come out like that. Yeah, if, if it's the deficiency, it's gonna be a couple days down the road, and that's one of the reasons why having ample feeder space is keen. Um, you know, everybody loves hatching chicks. I mean, they make that cute little noise and they're fun, so you don't like them, but. You know, you, you gotta have plenty of feeder space in the Brooder forum. Um, you know, I've got brooders that are four feet long, like they're in, in four foot sections. And the feeder for what goes in there, it's two feet long and it, uh, it'll hold like, like four or five pounds of feed, but that goes right in the middle. And then I got the pl brooder plate on the one side, and I've got a water on the other side at the edge, but it, there's, you know, they can get all the way around the water. So gotta make sure you have plenty of access to feed. What about CRD?
Speaker 2:Uh, chronic respiratory distress or chronic respiratory disease. Yeah. You know, so things like Rizza, CRD, uh, even sinus site is pretty much all come back to, uh, MG Mycoplasm Gal Septicum, right? Mm-hmm. And you know, they, they kind of all offshoots of that, that. That disease, um, and really hard to treat, you know, really hard to actually diagnose correctly. And I was getting a kick outta some people I, you know, have said, well, you hold their nostrils closed and if bubbles come out their eyes, you CRD, well. Um, no, not really, but it, yeah. Let,
Speaker:let's suffocate our bird and then see if bubbles come out. Its eyes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You do have a sinus infection. That's, that's a hundred percent true, but you know, um, you're not gonna, you're not gonna, if you're gonna have some
Speaker:other kind of problem. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but it's, yeah. Um. You know, without opening a bird up and looking at air sacks and things like that. And, and you know, the point that everybody needs to take away is you need to learn how to do necropsies and you know, you gotta learn how to do necropsies, right. And first off, you do a necropsy on a perfectly healthy bird that you're gonna eat.
Speaker:Yeah, right. I was gonna say, you definitely doing, it's really good, but you also need to know what you're looking at.
Speaker 2:Right. And, and you, you really, you know, you do that once. Well, I mean, if you're gonna, you know, if you're harvesting birds for your own table or your own freezer, then that's fine, but yeah. Um, you need to go through it and actually do it. Right. Follow along the videos that there's several on YouTube how to do it.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And. Um, but take pictures along the way, right? So you have references as you're pulling the different organs out one at a time, you know? Uh, and, and I like to do it on like white butcher paper, something really white. cause it gives me the best background for getting pictures, right? So I get the best contrasting background. Mm-hmm. All right. And just make your own portfolio. Uh, what a healthy bird should look like inside there. Right. And like back when you said you went out and you found one dead, right. And you made it sound like it was flipped over, right? Uh, like it was on its back kind of thing. Died of a heart attack or something.
Speaker:Yeah, it was just laying, laying down, head down. But even like, it was standing there and it just went,
Speaker 3:uh,
Speaker 2:even if it had been dead for hours, right? You can still open that up. And the heart is the easiest one to know. If it, if it died of a heart attack right now opening it up, you would've been able to see, um, you would've been able to, you know, still see some of the organs would've been, you know, uh, in place intact. You would've been able to see the amount of fat inside mm-hmm. To see if that was part of the problem. But the heart tone, the heart muscle will not lose its firmness even after several hours of death.
Alex:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast. We hope you found this episode helpful. Be sure to Join us next Tuesday when we bring you the final part of the Poultry Health Master Class. Until then; keep learning, keep improving, and keep enjoying the birds you love.
