Do Your Baby Chicks Really Need Marek's Vaccination?

You cannot split it. The dilutant comes in a sterile one-use bottle, so does the vial of vaccine. It isn't possible to open and divide the vaccine. You dilute the vaccine using a syringe, this syringe is then disposed of, and you use smaller syringes to vaccinate the chicks. Trust me. I was a medical assistant in a doctor's office for years and know about giving sub-q and intravenous medications. If it were possible I would have done it. I bought the vaccine and it is waiting in my fridge for the hatch. Hopefully they will all hatch on the same day, but I wouldn't bet on it. This is not an inexpensive project, and living in the Pacific Northwest it is not something I want to risk.
 
This one is not the product that I bought. This one comes with 2 bottles of dilutant and 2 sterile IV bags of dilutant. It is also ten dollars more ($39.99) than the product I bought, which was $29.99. This company also requires that you buy the shipping container / cooler which is $15.50. I chose this product and checked out - this with the shipping cost of $50.80 (to Washington State) made the total cost $106.25. Still pretty pricey, don't you think? I don't know about you, but it seems if your vet is in the area you might be able to time it so that you can get your other animals (horses, etc.) vaccinated at the same time and combine the ranch call fee. Again, this wouldn't be practical for a backyard chicken owner.

The product I bought had only one bottle of dilutant, so I can only use it once and I cannot divide the vaccine wafer.
 
This one is not the product that I bought.  This one comes with 2 bottles of dilutant and 2 sterile IV bags of dilutant. It is also ten dollars more ($39.99) than the product I bought, which was $29.99. This company also requires that you buy the shipping container / cooler which is $15.50.  I chose this product and checked out - this with the shipping cost of $50.80 (to Washington State) made the total cost $106.25.  Still pretty pricey, don't you think?  I don't know about you, but it seems if your vet is in the area you might be able to time it so that you can get your other animals (horses, etc.) vaccinated at the same time and combine the ranch call fee. Again, this wouldn't be practical for a backyard chicken owner. 

The product I bought had only one bottle of dilutant, so I can only use it once and I cannot divide the vaccine wafer. 


Oh, I wasn't looking at the economics...just wondering how this chicken doc kept sterility on a divided wafer.

Did your diluent come in a glass ampoule then? If it had a rubber stopper, it's easy to maintain sterility for multiple draws. Vets use multi-dose vials for a lot of drugs and such...including vaccines.
 
Because the glass vial contains a dry solid, you need to first mix it in the bottle with the dilutant that you put into the bottle with a syringe, once that is mixed, you must remove the entire amount with a syringe and put it into the larger dilutant bottle. You must use the whole bottle of dilutant to get the right concentration-so its not a matter of not having enough dried vaccine, its a matter of only having one bottle of dilutant which you must use all of. Once mixed the shelf life is only one hour, so you cannot store it for later. If there was a way I could have done it, I would have. I am cost conscious and don't like to waste. I understand that in the doctor's office you see them using a multiple use vial of solution, but these have a shelf life for longer than an hour. You can't use old vaccine, it loses its effectiveness with time.
 
I am familiar with administering vaccinations correctly.

Again, there are ways to divide the diluent sterilely. For example, using these: http://www.medical-and-lab-supplies.com/vials/sealed-sterile-vials.html

There are also ways to open the glass vial of the dry puck, use a sterile instrument to cut it into pieces, extract a piece from the vial, put it into a separate sterile vial, reconstitute it with the correct amount of diluent (i.e. you cut the puck in fourths, you use 1/4 the diluent), and administer. You could then put each unneeded puck piece into it's own sterile vial for storage. HOWEVER, since this vaccine is administered SQ, this all really needs to be done under a sterile lab hood/clean room...something most people lack. :) If it were a vaccine that was supposed to be administered intranasally, ocularly, or by mouth then the chance of causing an abscess is almost nil so I would be a lot more comfortable with using sterile techniques outside of a clean room (like they do in surgery, for example).

In any case, wasn't making any recommendations. Just wondering "out loud" and engaging in mental exercise.
 
I'm coming onto this thread late, but I agree with RainForestBird, the vaccine is not distributed in the most economical and efficient way. It costs cents to produce and it is distributed in a way that defeats the purpose. The process that Jensownzoo describes -jumping through a lot of hoops with equipment that most people don't have would compromise the integrity of the vaccine, if it even has that much integrity because there are several different strains and each one has mutated to the point that it may not even be close to the one that is being distributed, giving people false hope. Vaccines are very perishable. You can have it delivered overnight, with a cold pack and a cooler, but who knows how it was handled before it was packed.

Usually a person who is trained to administer vaccines to humans in a doctor's office, such as a nurse or medical assistant knows what they are talking about. Lab technicians, nurses, and MAs spend months if not years learning to calculate doses, and administer medications and vaccines. Distribution of new vaccines for common but changing diseases is one of the issues that seems to have the most urgency among farmers, but is lowest on the priority list when it comes to shelling out grant money.
 
I repeat, I am familiar with administering vaccines correctly and have actually have formal training in it...with a degree and everything. What I am musing about is not practical--I am just curious as to the mysterious unknown instructions that come with the package that I linked to in my former post. I suspect that they are not posted in the description because they might get the company in trouble in some fashion. Abscesses in birds and reptiles are nothing to sneeze at, often requiring surgical intervention to resolve. Contamination of a product designed to be injected under the skin is a nice way to cause an abscess.
 

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