New technology could help reduce user error and monitor the performance and efficacy of the poultry vaccination process, improving flock immunity and productivity.
Vaccination is one of the best ways to protect poultry flocks against disease outbreaks. However, sometimes vaccines will work perfectly on one farm but provide less effectiveness at a poultry operation down the street.
“A lot of the time we believe that we have great vaccines and we’re doing everything by the book, but we find that the flocks are not immune,” Assaf Shafran, VP & General Manager, pHi-Tech at Phibro said.
“If we think just by buying the vaccines, prescribing the right doses and working with engineering that by definition the flock is immune, then we’re making a mistake.”
Human error
To be truly effective, vaccinations require precise procedures.
“There are a variety of different issues when dealing with mass vaccinations in poultry,” Shafran explained. “For example, if the vaccine needs to be a specific dose and it’s not provided by mistake, by administering the wrong vaccine or not warming up the vaccination.”
In many cases, dissatisfactory immunity outcomes after vaccination usually comes down to one simple factor: human error.
“Essentially, we’re relying on the human factor to do a task that, if you look at today’s reality, could be performed differently. By not having that control and not using the right technologies and tools, sometimes that can result in a direct link between those factors and issues in flock immunity,” he said.
Data to the rescue
New vaccine technology collects data on every vaccine application to help provide real-time oversight of crew performance. It also streamlines the labor-intensive operation with an electro-mechanical auto injector, ensuring that the dosage is correct every time.
The technology “gives full traceability of who did what and what batch number of vaccines were given. If you hear that there is a problem, you can immediately go back and see which flocks were injected,” said Shafran.
“The fact that there is a computer involved in this system means that I can count and measure the temperature of the vaccine, track the time-lapse between the push of the needle and the pull out to understand if the injection was inside the bird or pulled out too soon and give visual or audio notifications to the operator.”
Like what you just read? Sign up now for free to receive the Poultry Future Newsletter.
