Vaccination

Vaccination is an important way of helping to prevent some of the main diseases of poultry (for example Newcastle and Gumboro). Vaccination against a particular disease helps the chick’s body to fight against a future attack by that disease. A vaccine will only work if the chickens are vaccinated before they are sick. Once they are sick, they need medicine to treat the disease. For a vaccine to work properly you must:

Buy the correct dosage for the number of chickens that you want to vaccinate. Vaccines usually come in amounts for 500 or 1 000 birds. They are quite cheap (only a few cents per bird), so if you have fewer birds than this, it is still worth buying the vaccine even if you don’t use all of it.
Store the vaccine correctly. Most vaccines need to be kept in a fridge (not the freezer compartment). After buying some vaccine from a medicine supplier, keep it cold by putting it in an insulated cool box with some ice on your way home. If you have no cool box, you can keep it cool by wrapping it in newspaper together with some cans of very cold cooldrink. Go home as quickly as possible and put the vaccine straight into the fridge. If you do not have a fridge, use the vaccine as soon as you get home.
Use the vaccine when the birds are of the correct age. If you’re not sure, check with the supplier of the vaccine or with a vet.
Use the correct amount of water for the number of birds when giving the vaccine.
Make sure that all the chickens receive the vaccine.
Check the expiry date before buying the vaccine. It is a waste of money and time to use a vaccine that is older than the date stamped on the bottle label.
Make sure that all the equipment you use for mixing and applying vaccines is very clean.
To use the vaccine, you usually have to first mix it with water. If you do not have purified water, you should use rainwater or tap water and add 10 teaspoons of skim milk powder to every 10 litres of water that you are going to use. Use a clean container of the right size to measure the quantity of water you will be using. Open the bottle with the vaccine in it. Pour a little of the purified water from your container into the vaccine bottle, replace the lid and mix well. Add this mixture to the rest of the water. Rinse out the bottle three or four times with more water. Then mix the vaccine and water in the container.

Do all this indoors, or in the shade, as direct sunlight can destroy the vaccine. Vaccines are generally only good for about one to two hours after being mixed. So you should use it quickly, and throw away any that is left over.

Live and Dead Vaccines

Live vaccines contain the live disease virus in a mild form. They act quickly but their effect does not last very long. They are relatively easy to apply. Dead vaccines, also called inactivated-oil-emulsion vaccines, have to be injected into each bird, either in the muscle or under the skin. This should only be done by someone who has the required skill. The advantage of these oil-emulsion vaccines is that they last a long time so you do not have to re-vaccinate as often as with live vaccines.

Vaccination Methods

Vaccination can be done in different ways:

Eye-drop method

This works well if you only have a few birds that are easy to catch. For this method, you buy a special bottle of liquid (called the diluent) and a dropper, together with the bottle containing the dry vaccine powder. Once you have mixed the diluent with the vaccine, use the dropper to put a single drop of the mixture into each chicken’s eye.

Apply one drop of vaccine into the chicken’s eye

Spray method

This is the most effective way of applying live vaccines. Keep a hand spray especially for this purpose (do not use it for spraying insecticides). If you only have a few birds, you can use a small hand spray. For larger numbers of birds, you will need a knapsack spray. Once you have mixed the vaccine and the correct quantity of purified water, pour it into the spray, adjust the spray nozzle so that it produces a fine spray, and then spray evenly and continuously over the birds, making sure that the head of each chicken is wet.

Spray vaccines should wet the head of every chicken

Drinking water method

This is the easiest way to give vaccines to larger numbers of chickens but is not as effective as spraying. You first need to empty or raise all the drinkers about two to three hours before you intend to vaccinate. This will make the birds thirsty and they will drink the vaccine mixed with purified water quickly when you add it to the drinkers.

To get the birds to drink the vaccine water in half an hour, use these amounts:

Amount of water to get the birds to drink the vaccine-containing water

Age (days)	Water (litres for every 100 birds)
14	1.5
21	2.0
30	3.0
56+	4.0

Once the birds have drunk the vaccine water, refill the drinkers with fresh water.

Needle through the wing-web method

This is the way that the Fowl Pox vaccine is applied. A special needle and a special diluent usually come with the vaccine. Once you have mixed the vaccine with the diluent, dip the needle into the vaccine, open out the wing and then stick the tip of the needle through the skin where the chick’s elbow is. Make sure that feathers do not get in the way as they will wipe off the vaccine before it goes into the skin. Also, be careful not to stick the needle into one of the wing bones.

For needle-applied vaccines make sure feathers do not get in the way

Injections

This is time-consuming because each chicken has to be caught and it takes a lot of practice to be able to inject properly. However, some vaccines (not usually used by small producers) can only be applied in this way.

Vaccination Programmes

To help you know what vaccines need to be applied when some examples of basic vaccination programmes are shown. With the programme for broilers, if the chicks receive La Sota vaccination when they are one day old, they do not need the 10 – 12 day Newcastle Disease vaccination. However, some smaller farmers have trouble brooding chicks that have received La Sota as day-olds.

An alternative would be to vaccinate day-olds with the weaker Hitchener B1 vaccine and then give booster La Sota vaccinations at 10 to 12 days and around 18-days-of-age. If Gumboro disease is not a serious problem in your area, one vaccination against Gumboro at 15 to 17 days would be sufficient.

The actual vaccination programme used by poultry farmers varies from district to district and even from farm to farm, so you must discuss what particular programme is best for you with your vet, Extension Officer or another poultry adviser.

Example of a vaccination programme for chicks

Age	Disease	Vaccine	Method of Application
Day-old	Newcastle Disease	Hitchner B1	Spray*
Day 10 – 12	Infectious Bronchitis	H120	Eye drops or spray*
Day 14	Newcastle Disease	La Sota	Spray/drinking water
Day 18	Gumboro	Mild strain	In drinking water
Day 21	Newcastle Disease	La Sota	Spray/drinking water

* These are usually done at the hatchery.

Example of a vaccination programme for broilers

Age (days)	Vaccination
Day 1,2 & 3	On receiving day-old chicks mix 1 x 100 g Stress pack in 10 l of water. Give the 10 l of the mixture as water for the first 3 days. Mix ¼ teaspoon of Tylosin on 25 l of water and only give this as drinking water for the next 3 days. (days 4 – 6).
Day 9	Limit the water to thirst the chicks. Give them 20lts of water and measure exactly how much water was consumed within 1.5 hours (90 min). This amount of water measured will be used as a mixture for vaccination on days 10 & 14 (e.g., 20lts).
Day 10	Vaccinate for Newcastle disease and infectious bronchitis (VH + H120). Mix 1 unit of the vaccination in 20lts (amount measured on day 9) of water. The chicks must finish the mixture within 1.5 hours (90 min).
Day 11	Mix 1 x 100gm stress pack in drinking water.
Day 14	Vaccinate for Gumboro disease (D78). Again mix 1 unit of the vaccination in 20lts (amount measured on day 9) of water.
Day 15	Mix 1 x 100gm stress pack in drinking water.
Day 21	Mix ¼ teaspoon of Tylosin in 25 l of drinking water and only give this water for drinking.
Day 22	Vaccinate for Newcastle disease (clone 30). Mix 1 clone 30 units in 20 l (amount measured on day 9) of water. The chicks must finish the mixture within 1.5 hours (90 min).
Day 35	Vaccinate for Newcastle disease. Mix 1 unit of clone 30 in 20 l of water as on day 22.
Day 42 (only if chickens are growing older than 42 days)	Vaccinate for Newcastle disease. Mix 1 unit of clone 30 in 20 l of water as on day 22.

A vaccination programme for layers: Every 30 days: Mix 1 by MA5 clone 30 (1000 units) in 1 l of clean water in the 1lt spray can. Immediately spray 1200 birds evenly with 1 l of the mixture.

Medicines

If a particular disease has been diagnosed, the vet will advise you on what medicine to use. This medicine is usually an antibiotic or some other chemical. When you do have to administer medicines, bear in mind that:

Treatment must be given to all the birds in the flock: this helps to prevent the problem from spreading.
Make sure you give the correct amount (dose) of the medicine by carefully reading the instructions on the container.
Most medicines are given in the drinking water because catching and treating each bird individually takes a long time. Make sure that you use the correct amount of water.
Most medicines must be given over a few days. Even if the chickens look better before the time, you must treat the chickens for the number of days recommended by the manufacturer of the medicine. If you do not follow these instructions, the disease-causing organism can build up resistance to that medicine and, in future, it will be much more difficult to treat the disease. This is particularly true of antibiotics.
Some medicines should not be given near the time that the chickens are to be slaughtered because the medicine can be carried in the meat and could affect the people who eat that meat. Read the instructions to see if this applies to the particular medicine you are using.
All medicines have an expiry date. After this, they should not be used. Check this on the label of the medicine container.
Check the instructions for how to store the medicine. Some may need to be kept in a fridge. Most should be kept in a cool, dark place. Medicines can be dangerous to children, so keep them in a safe place out of children’s reach.
Coccidiosis is a common disease. The main symptom is blood in the droppings. This disease can often be prevented by buying feed that already contains a low dose of an anti-coccidial drug. This is given to broilers during the rearing stage. If you get an outbreak of coccidiosis, there are other anti-coccidial drugs you can buy to apply in the drinking water to treat the disease.

If you do not get an improvement after treating with a particular medicine, go back for further advice from your vet or adviser.