No good vaccination quality without good control: the positive impact of a hatchery vaccination service program

Abstract

Vaccination is currently one of the most relevant control strategies in poultry production to reduce infectious disease–induced economic losses and decrease antimicrobial use. Besides intrinsic vaccine efficacy, a proper administration is fundamental to achieve an adequate coverage and protection. Hatchery vaccination is becoming the standard approach for routine vaccination because of administration easiness, the possibility to standardize and optimize the overall process, and the lower impact on animal welfare compared with different types of on-farm vaccination. However, a continuous maintenance, refinement, and training of the personnel are the key to success. In the present work, the effect of longitudinal hatchery audits, performed using a standardized, expert-developed questionnaire was evaluated in 169 hatcheries, located in 11 European countries, over a period of more than 4 yr. A dedicated tablet-based application was implemented for data collection, storage, and analysis, and the obtained scores were used in the evaluation, reporting to the hatchery management and improvement of critical points. A positive significant association was demonstrated between the variation in global and process-specific hatchery scores and the number of performed audits. Similarly, when the longitudinal nature of the data (i.e., multiple visits) was accounted for using linear mixed models, including the hatchery and country as random factors, a significant trend in performance improvement was observed visit after visit, although with certain differences based on the specific score and country. The present study demonstrates the benefits of an objective evaluation of hatchery performances through a standardized questionnaire, followed by the discussion on the major required actions. The widespread application of this approach should lead to a significant improvement in vaccine administration performances, with direct consequences on infectious disease occurrence and animal production performances, and indirectly on therapeutic and control-related costs.

Impact of Rotten Eggs on Hatchery Performances: A Multicentric Study

“…During the audits, the different parameters are scored using a tablet-based application, and the results are stored in a dedicated database to be reported to hatchery management [ 12 ].…”

Vaccination Technology in Poultry: Principles of Vaccine Administration

“…Features differ from one platform to another and will not be discussed in detail here. Monitoring programs at the hatchery are proposed by most vaccine companies to check on a routine basis the accuracy of the whole vaccination process, including the injection itself (19,20,21). A common feature to keep in mind is that injecting through the egg chamber increases subsequent risks of bacterial and, even more, fungal contamination in case of poor air hygiene in the hatchery.…”

Infectious Bronchitis Virus Evolution, Diagnosis and Control

“…Mass spray vaccination is an approach that clearly minimizes work whilst maximizing coverage, and it is usually applied at hatchery or farm by spray, which is considered analogous to the gold standard oculo-nasal vaccination in mimicking the entrance of respiratory viruses [ 120 , 130 ], when properly managed. However, improper settings of the diameter of the sprayed droplets can cause a deep penetration of the vaccine virus in the lungs and consequent vaccine reactions [ 120 ].…”