Mareks Vaccine

[Chick Norris]

Stick with the good information already posted by those such as horsejody.

There are live-attenuated vaccines based on the virulent virus strains, but unless you have a way of handling liquid nitrogen, the vaccine used will be HVT (Herpes Virus of Turkey) based.

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[FrenchToast]

pips&peeps :

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make sure you don't get the diameter of the needle smaller than 25 G or it will shred the virus as it comes out and you will be vaccinating for nothing.

Wow, now that is something I have never heard before. I use the diabetic needles, I think might be 29g not sure. Get them at Walmart.​

 

[kelar]

Me either - I've also been using the 29 g. needles, but the vaccine seems to be doing its job - Jean, can you follow up with more info? I know they recommend 22g. on the package insert, but I've never heard of the vaccine being shredded - know it's fragile, but would think that once its in the diluent, the particles would be extremely tiny. I have chicks to vaccinate in the next day or 2 so sure would like to know.

 

[pips&peeps]

When you push the virus through a needle opening that small it will tear it from the pressure. This was told to me by a Vet at Fort Dodge.

 

[kelar]

Thanks Jean. I found an article online talking about what you mentioned, so guess I need to change my vaccination techniques. Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. It seems that the recommendation is to use an 18 guage needle for withdrawing from the vial and a 20 or 22 guage needle for vaccination. From what I could find in the literature, the vaccine is not totally destroyed by the small needle, but can be up to 30% less effective. Now to figure out how to deal with a 22 guage needle and those tiny silkie babies

 

[FrenchToast]

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Care to share that article please? Also where are all of you getting your mareks vaccines these days? Jeffers is on backorder until July sometime.

And where do you get the 22 g needle? I think they are easy to find. Geez, I have a whole package of the diabetic needles. No biggy I guess since they were only 20 cents a piece.

This ought to be interesting, you are right vaccinating tiny silkies or other bantams.

Oh an while were on the topic of mareks vaccine. Twin City Poultry supplies told me that if you try to split the wafer in lets say 4 pieces you may not even get any vaccine in one of the pieces since the wafer media is not equally dispersed with the vaccine. Hope I made that understandable. I've split mine (according to First State Vets instructions) but no matter how hard I try the dilutant gets cloudy on me. I've even used brand new syringes and at the onset of tapping the bottle I filled 4 new syringes with 50cc of the solution (dilutant only) thinking it would store better. It did but eventually it did get cloudy but not as quickly as when it was kept in the same bottle as it came in. I've noticed that as I was pulling the solution out air bubbles were entering into the bottle. So thinking it was the air that caused it to go bad I decided to store it in their own 50cc syringe.

Since I heard that about the wafer I've actually given my chicks more vaccine to compensate and have had no ill effects, at least not from the vaccine.

 

[kelar]

Yep - pm me with your email address and I'll send you a copy. I had to pull it up as a pdf and could not figure out how to copy the link I stopped dividing the vaccine wafer for that very reason - the diluent went cloudy and bad, plus I did not feel comfortable that I was actually protecting them adequately.

 

[shelleyb1969]

Wow...very interesting. I've been using 25ga needles for 2 years and never had any issues with chicks/juveniles dying...nor adults for that matter. For those who's diluent is becoming cloudy...are you refrigerating it? I keep mine refrigerated and haven't had a problem with it becoming cloudy. This is all super interesting to me. But it's really hard to tell which methods are best and which ones aren't when the vaccine doesn't actually prevent the vaccinated birds from contracting the disease in the first place...it just prevents the tumors from forming in them.

I suppose it just comes down to doing what works best for you and what you feel comfortable with. If there's one thing I've seen/learned in this forum...most everyone has their own opinion/belief/ideas, and none of them are entirely "wrong".

 

[FrenchToast]

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Yep, Refridgerating it right away. I can't figure that one out.

Oh and by the way, I have been revacinating all of my chicks about a month after their first vaccination.

 

[MrsChicken1954]

I could be wrong about this, but please check the instructions with the vaccine. When I vaccinated with a HVT vaccine it said you had to use the vaccine within an hour once it was mixed, then discard it. If it's going cloudy that will be bacteria developing in the diluent.