Vaccination Schedule for Broilers

Disease prevention and control

Remember following points to prevent diseases in broilers.

• Clean sanitary conditions of poultry sheds and equipment, balanced feed, fresh clean water, healthy chicks are essential to prevent diseases.

• Avoid entry of visitors to farm, especially inside the sheds. If visitors come, ask them to dip their feet in a disinfectant solution wash and clean hands and to wear apron/boots provided by the farm.

• Use proper vaccination schedule. Use high quality vaccines purchased from reputed manufacturers. Keep vaccines in cool, dry conditions away from sunlight. Any leftover vaccine should be properly disposed off. Vaccines should not be used after their expiry date is over.

• Any bird showing advanced signs of a disease, should be removed from the shed and culled. It can be sent to laboratory for diagnosis

• Birds showing advanced signs of a disease should be shown to a qualified veterinarian and suitable medication/treatment be given as per his/drug manufactures recommendations.

• Any dead birds should be immediately removed from the shed and sent to laboratory for diagnosis or buried/buried/burnt suitably away from the poultry sheds. The waste of farm should be suitably disposed off.

• Poultry manure, if infected, can spread disease, from one batch to another. Keep the litter dry, remove it after flock is sold and dispose the manure properly and quickly.

• Keep proper records on mortality and its causes and the treatment given to birds. Dates of vaccination for each flock should be properly recorded.

• Rats are important carries of poultry disease. Use suitable rat poisons/rat traps.

Vaccination Schedule for Broilers

Sr. No.	Name of disease	Name of vaccination	Days/weeks of vaccination	Route of inoculation
1	Marek’s disease	Herpes virus turkey vaccination	1 day old	Sub cutaneous immunity
2	Ranikhet disease	RD vaccine (Lasota ‘F’ strain)	4-7 days old	Intra-nasal Intra-ocular
3	Fowl pox	Chick embryo adopted fowl	6-8 weeks of age	Wing web method

• Many poultry medicines can be given in drinking water. When medication is to be given, remove the waterers in poultry sheds on the previous evening. Next morning give medicine in measured quantity of water, so that entire medicine will be quickly consumed and there will be no wastage of medicines.

• Mild infection of disease may not cause mortality but it will reduce growth. Keep sample record of body weight and mortality rate. Study the possible causes, if weight is low take steps to improve the management of the subsequent batches. A Constant vigil and analysis of records/results is necessary to keep up the efficiency in farming.