21/04/2022
Mistakes Poultry Farmers Make
1. Vaccinating Sick or Stressed Chickens:
👉When a chicken is sick, the immune system is compromised. At such times, vaccines will only do more harm – instead of preventing the disease. What happens when you vaccinate a sick bird is that, the weakened organism that is introduced into the chicken’s body is now able to cause the disease.
2. Using Vaccines as Drugs:
👉In most cases, farmers think that repeating the vaccine will increase the chances of its effectiveness. Some even multiply the doses per vaccination exercise. Well, there are instances where vaccines should be repeated but only at safe intervals. This should be according to manufacturer’s prescription and not just because you think you need to add an extra dose. Some farmers also treat symptoms of viral diseases with vaccines. All these need to be checked.
3. Poor Vaccine Administration:
👉This involves the management issues that may break a vaccination exercise. For instance, if proper monitoring is not done and some birds don’t have access to the vaccine, this might lead to a serious outbreak in the future. In such cases, un-vaccinated birds pose a challenge to the vaccinated ones and the farmer’s profit.
4. Poor Storage of Vaccines:
👉Poultry vaccines are usually kept in a cold chain. That is, from the point of manufacture to the point of use, they need to be kept in cold storage. Poor storage will therefore render such vaccines useless, and even if administered, no vaccination has taken place. Only buy vaccines from reputable places that are trusted to have kept all the requirements to keep the vaccines potent.
👉Poor storage may also be due to freezer breakdown, personnel carelessness or transportation issues. The bad thing about vaccine failure is that it often goes unnoticed. That is, the farmer believes that all the chickens have been vaccinated until symptoms of the disease they were vaccinated for begins to surface. Protect your investment by taking that extra precaution.
5. Use of Poor Quality Water:
👉As we should already know, water is the diluent used for most vaccines. The use of water with high concentration of salt or chlorine will render vaccines impotent. This implies that you must be sure of the composition of the water used for vaccination.
👉As important as it is to vaccinate your chickens to prevent them from diseases, it is more important to do it right.
https://bit.ly/MagApr2022
April 2022 Agribusiness Magazine
