Vaccinations

[Chuck]

Just thought I'd share this with you which may help us understand why there is so much confusion over vaccinations and why they apparently fail to provide the protection we expect.

I bought some well grown growers for laying, Hy-Lines in fact, at 12 weeks old. The people who I bought them from, bought them from the hatchery at day old. When I asked if they had been vaccinated, they said something like 'Oh yes, they are vaccinated against everything before they leave the hatchery'. So perhaps this is where much of the misunderstanding comes in because the day old vaccinations are just the start of a series as I understand it, which are spead over a couple of months. As lots of people buy from the hatcheries, I wonder just how many young stock and adults are around that have never had the full range of vaccines.
While many of the professional rearers (most of which buy from the hatcheries at d/o) do continue with the vaccination programme I suspect that there are many that don't. Obviously, if some or all of the later vaccinations have been missed, it could account for why we see so much illness which has supposedly been vaccinated against.

Obviously I'd be interested to know what others think.

 

[Margaid]

Makes sense Chuck - could it also be developing more resistant strains?

 

[Chuck]

Yes, more resistant strains could be developing but the points about the confusion around the vaccination programmes could help to understand just what has been vaccinated for what.

 

[foxy]

There are quite a few possible combinations of vaccination schedules you could use..each one designed for a particular situation. In general in the UK the schedule takes around 6 - 8 weeks to complete. This is based on the fact that the poultry will need time in between each dose of vaccination usually 2 weeks as some vaccines will use the same target cellular area required in order to produce anti-bodies. You can ask for a schedule and proof of vaccination, a record card that the vaccination supplier will have provided along with the vaccines.

Diseases such as Mareks and Mycoplasma as two common examples, are highly prevalent, they are almost impossible to avoid. By buying hybrids (at day old) to sell on, into an environment which does not have a on-going detailed vaccination programme, combined with lets say a selection of birds sourced from various different locations this will naturally increase the probability of disease already on site. Take this birds to a new home with another set of birds, add stress due to the different conditions...and suddenly after a couple weeks symptoms suddenly occur in the new/and or existing flock.

 

[chrismahon]

The last three hybrids we took in had an immunisation programme which I got from the original supplier Merrydale. No Mareks but ILT and IB in the drinking water -live viruses of the immunisation strain. They were dosed with them twice for some reason ?

 

[Sue]

Whilst what Chuck has suggested is probably the explanation in a lot of cases,this unfortunately doesn't explain why mine have Myco and IB. I purchased my birds at POL (in fact most of them were actually in lay) from a breeder of pure and rare breeds. He breeds them himself from his own home bred stock and vaccinates them all himself. They received a very long list of vaccines, more than just the basic ones (if I can find the list I will post it later). He runs a closed flock so nothing comes in from outside, he won't even accept one of his own bred birds back once they have left.

The birds had a fairly stress free introduction to their new home when they came to me. They were in a brand new house and run, where no poultry had been for at least 35 years, maybe longer, maybe never! Yet one of the birds was wheezing after about 2 weeks with me (this was the one who was blood tested positive for Myco and IB) and I believe infected the whole flock. Was she and the others actually infected by the vaccine rather than protected by it?

Interestingly the two birds that I had to separate and now live in the next run are not affected, although lived with the other birds for several months.