Some things are just better together…nuts and bolts, socks and shoes, pen and paper…all better when combined.  But until recently, combining poultry coccidiosis vaccines with other live biologicals was not a good idea. But that has changed.  What kept us from conveniently delivering cocci vaccine with other biologicals like bronchitis (IB) or Newcastle (ND) vaccines in the same spray solution? The answer is oxidation.  It’s not that the vaccine organisms themselves aren’t compatible; all three of these vaccines function great when consumed orally.  The problem is that some of the additives vaccine manufacturers put in cocci vaccines will threaten others unless they are properly stabilized. ASP has developed an ideal solution.

Gel-Pac, from its initial adoption in the poultry industry, has been most commonly used to deliver orally active probiotic bacteria to young birds in commercial hatcheries.  Easy to prepare, adaptable to existing equipment, and voraciously eaten by hatchlings, the gel spray is popularly applied to birds as early as day-of-hatch to get the most rapid gut colonization possible on this side of the egg. Download the PDF

They are surprisingly harmful, considering they cannot live outside the host for more than a few days1. They are the Mycoplasma species, some of the most commercially relevant disease-causing bacteria for poultry producers. M. gallisepticum (MG) and M. synoviae (MS) owe their unique nature to a couple of key factors. First, they spread easily, being the smallest bacterial pathogens known for poultry. Second, they are extraordinarily fragile due to a specialized characteristic…they do not have a cell wall, only a cell membrane. By themselves, Mycoplasma can hide reclusively in poultry respiratory tissues, harbored for life, and producing no noticeable symptoms. However they can, without warning and often when animals are stressed, blow up into acute, well-recognized diseases such as Chronic Respiratory Disease (in the case of MG) and Infectious Synovitis (in the case of MS)2. These diseases are complex because they result from interactions between the Mycoplasma and other respiratory infections such as Newcastle Disease Virus, Infectious Bronchitis Virus, and Avian Influenza.