This is one of the most exciting findings in animal welfare science I've seen in a long time: A new paper uses electron beams to create a vaccine that reduces broiler lameness by 50% (!) in a Staphylococcus challenge trial.

Lameness is one of the most important welfare (and economic) issues currently facing the broiler industry. The most common form of lameness is "BCO lameness" - basically bacteria infecting cartilage and bone tissue making chickens unable to walk.

This study creates a vaccine that increases immunity to the bacteria that cause BCO lameness. They focused on Staphylococcus because it's commonly found in broiler houses, but in theory it could be used for many other common bacteria like e coli, salmonella, enteroccocus, etc.

This study is super exciting because: 1) The effect size is very large. Other cheap interventions for lameness might only reduce it by a few percentage points 2) Vaccines are extremely cheap, and broilers are already vaccinated for other diseases like Marek's

The finding was in an artificial setting, so it remains to be seen if the effects will be as large in commercial settings. But in theory we can imagine broiler chickens being vaccinated against all of the bacteria they might expect to encounter in their life.

And if the vaccine was effective, it could also improve other welfare issues caused by bacterial infections, as well as reduce the need for antibiotics, and increase production metrics like feed efficiency by improving overall chicken health.

Traditionally, many have tried to reduce lameness through slower growing breeds, which companies have strongly resisted. But if this vaccine works, it could achieve much of the desired effect, while being naturally adopted by the industry because of its economic benefits.

Full paper here: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ar…