There are lots of instructions for cutting the 1000 dose vaccine into pieces, but no studies to show if that actually works, or if the process kills the remaining vaccine pieces, rendering them useless, but I wouldn't know if they were usable or not. I can get an "injection gun" like the hatcheries use to speed up the process and avoid needles in their necks. Definitely adds a significant cost to the process, but once you mix the vaccine, you can vaccinate as many chicks as you can in an hour, so the first chick costs $50 to vaccinate, but the rest are basically free.
I'm not excited about doing this. I have even considered not selling chicks, just doing ducks, turkeys and guineas (all much more disease resistant than chicks). I am willing to raise 3 or 4 times the number of birds I need to allow for high losses and heavy culling, but no "keepers" want to do that, it only works for breeders. Heavy culling (either via disease attrition or selection by the breeder) is the best way to get rapid improvements in a flock. My breeder flock of Rees Legbars was 50+ pullets 4 years ago. I had replaced the roos, but still have 12 of those gals and they are still healthy and laying better now than the pullets I hatched last year! I was going to replace them this year, but decided they can stay - I want to see how old they can be and still be good layers. That heavy culling initially (probably started with 100 pullets that year and only 50 made it into the breeding pen) and years of attrition of the weaker birds and early quitters reduced me down to a fraction of the original chicks from my Rees starter flock, but these are really the "keepers" that I want to sell chicks from. I raised a bunch of late summer chicks from this group and plan to select the best looking to go back with their mothers next year and be their eventual replacements, if they are survivors.
