Effective Strategies to Manage Infectious Bursal Disease

Infectious bursal disease (IBD), also known as Gumboro disease, is highly contagious and a very common problem in poultry production. Present in virtually every commercial chicken facility, IBD spreads from bird to bird through fecal matter in the litter. When birds become infected, it causes damage to the bursa of Fabricius, a critical organ for a bird’s immune system. Severe cases can cause diarrhea and sharp increases in mortality.

During the first three weeks of the chicken’s life, the bursa goes through rapid development. If chickens become infected with IBD during this time, the disease will damage the immature immune cells and disrupt the proper development of the bursa, resulting in immunosuppression. This can reduce the effectiveness of vaccination programs and make the birds more susceptible to diseases such as Newcastle Disease and Infectious Bronchitis.

While there is no effective treatment for IBD, you can ensure that your birds are prepared to handle the potential challenge from day one. This starts with a successful vaccination program in your breeder hens.

Manage IBD With an Effective Vaccination Program

Protecting your broilers from IBD during the first three weeks of life starts weeks before they hatch. Implementing a vaccination program for the breeder hens helps them produce high levels of maternal antibody titers that are passed on to the progeny. This provides broiler chicks or the progeny with protection to IBD while the bursa is developing and maturing.

A broiler breeder IBD vaccine program should include two live vaccines starting at three weeks of age followed by an inactivated IBD vaccine administered at 12 weeks of age, with another inactivated vaccine given at around 18 weeks. Waiting four to six weeks after the initial dose is necessary to allow the immune response against IBD to fully develop. Vaccinating on this timeline allows the breeder hens to develop a high level of maternal antibodies.

All vaccine programs should include the standard and variant IBD strains. If an emerging variant strain has been identified, an inactivated autogenous vaccine should also be added to the program.

Assessing Your IBD Risk With Bursa Surveys

There are several ways to assess the overall impact and risk of IBD in your facility. When performing necropsy of broilers, the bursas can be visually assessed for size and examined for lesions suggestive for IBD. However, it’s important to remember that there are factors and infections other than IBD that may cause a decrease in bursa size. Histopathology of bursa tissues can provide a definitive diagnosis of IBD.

A more targeted way to assess bursa health is to conduct bursa surveys. These can show the overall bursa health status in a complex, provide a timeline as to what age IBD infection starts to occur, and identify the type of IBD challenge present. In a bursa survey, five birds from 12 to 15 flocks, varying in age between 12 and 33 days, will be sampled. Each bursa is cut in half. One half of the bursa is fixed in formalin and submitted for histopathologic examination for IBD lesions. The other half of the bursa is kept frozen at -80°F and later submitted for virus isolation if histopathology determines it is positive for IBD. If an IBD virus is isolated, then the lab will do gene sequencing to identify the IBDV genotype.

Work with your Elanco Technical Consultant to learn more about bursa surveys and developing an effective IBD vaccination program.