Development of a new foam vaccination method for poultry in the hatchery

Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
To protect poultry flocks from diseases, individual or mass vaccination methods are utilized in the industry. Mass vaccination methods are commonly used in hatcheries and the field to vaccinate large numbers of poultry. In the hatchery in-ovo, gel droplets, and spray cabinet are used to protect against Marek’s Disease, coccidiosis, infectious bronchitis (IBV) and Newcastle disease. The failure to deliver a consistent vaccine dose to each bird warrants a new vaccination method. Due to various uses in the pharmaceutical, culinary, and agricultural industries, foams were investigated as a potential vaccine administration method. Different foaming materials were evaluated on their characteristics, including expansion rate, liquid drainage, and deterioration rate. The foaming materials included egg white (EW), egg white with guar gum (EWGG), sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL), whey protein isolate, and Polysorbate 20, 60, and 80. Whipping and sparging methods were used to generate foams. The whipping method used CO2 and N2O gases at 75 PSI. The sparging method used 1.0, 2.5, and 5.0 L/min airflow rates with a 10m sparging disc during testing. Compared to the whipping method, the sparging method had a significantly higher expansion rate (P < 0.01) and lower drainage rate at 10 min (P < 0.01). There was no significant effect among deterioration rates between 1.0 and 2.5 L/min airflow rates (P > 0.1) or 5 and 10 min time points (P > 0.1) regardless of the material. Foams produced with egg white (EW) and sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL) by sparging and whipping generating methods were then applied to chicks under laboratory conditions that mimicked the field conditions in the hatchery. Chick behavior and the ingestion of the foam and spray treatments by the chicks were evaluated. Six total treatments and 5, one-day-old chicks per treatment were used. Chick ingestion behaviors included the chick preening itself or another chick, pecking, and drinking. The chicks were exposed over a 10-min period to the treatments and a fluorescent tracer was added to the treatment to quantify the ingestion of the foams by the chicks. The foams generated by sparging had the highest ingestion volume over the 10-min period (P < 0.01). The foam ingestion volumes from the sparging methods were 2.3 times of the spray and 2.6 times of the whipping over the 10-min exposure period. Chicks administered foams from the whipping method demonstrated more (107% higher) ingestion related behaviors compared to the average of spray and sparging methods (P < 0.05). The volumes of ingestion by chicks did not directly correlate to ingestion related behaviors. The foams from the sparging method had a higher expansion rate and increased the ingestion rate of the chicks. The viabilities of infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in foams produced with egg white (EW) and sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL) by sparging and whipping generating methods were tested. Specific-pathogen-free (SPF) embryonated chicken eggs were inoculated at 11-days of age at IBV dilution levels from 100 to 10-3 at 60 and 120 min after producing the foams. Eggs were candled and mortality was recorded for 8 days. Virus recovery was determined by examination of the embryos for lesion characteristics of IBV and titers were calculated for each foam treatment using the Reed and Muench method. The results showed the viability of IBV was not affected by foams generated from EW and SSL with both whipping and sparging methods when eggs were inoculated after 120-min of foam generation. However, EW foams from both methods caused a lower viral viability at the 60-min inoculation. ☐ Key words: Vaccination, foam, chicken, hatchery, behavior
Description
Keywords
Biological sciences, Behavior, Chicken, Foam, Hatchery, Vaccination
Citation