Lohmann Hatchery Guide

44 LOHMANN TIERZUCHT › MANAGEMENT GUIDE 44 Manual injector This is the most widely spread vaccination system in all countries and is cheap and easy to use, but it is very important that the operator has manual experience and carries out the task gently and accurately without any hard or brutal actions towards the chicks. Attention needs to be paid to avoid damaging the legs or neck bones, and the needle should be changed and disinfected frequently. Remember that chicks can be effectively vaccinated as soon as the solution enters the body: for this reason accurate control should be practised by the vaccine operator and use of colour in diluents can prove useful in the best vaccination procedures and re- solve many problems without injuring our chicks. Semi-automatic vaccinator Various different providers build these high-performance machines. When using, remember to use the dedicated specific injection settings for legs or neck. In these vaccinators, the cleanness and biosecurity are of course important, but attention also has to be paid to vaccine dosage, which has to be controlled by way of a regular schedule. A routine change of needles is also important, and it helps to trace the effective vaccination with a coloured dilu- ent. The machine has to stay dry and clean, as loss of the vaccine and the presence of residual blood or fluff are not tolerable. Total automatics vaccinator (robot) In recent years these systems have be- come much more commonplace in many hatcheries. This is a very nice machine that uses relatively sophisticated technology, and to do a good job the operator only has to load the chicks into a carousel sys- tem, which can arrange different vaccina- tions in a fixed place. Additionally, some of these machines can carry out extra processes on the chicks. It is important to control the condition of the needles (avoid bent needles, which can cause injury and death) and the frequency of needle disin- fections, as a loss of the vaccine and re- sidual blood or fluff are not tolerable. You should also arrange the solution quickly. Manuel injector Semi-automatic vaccinator