Abstract
The study was conducted to assess the suitability of soaked parboiled cracked maize as a carrier of I-2 vaccine for oral immunization of village chickens. Chickens were vaccinated once via ocular route and orally with cracked maize at the second and fifth weeks of the experiment. Post vaccination serum was collected 4, 7, 9 and 11 weeks of the experiment and haemagglutination inhibition test was done to evaluate the antibody titer. The results show that chickens vaccinated via ocular route produce geometric mean log2 HI antibody titers of 5.71 and 5.51 at the fourth and seventh weeks of the experiment, respectively. On the other hand, the antibody titer of chickens vaccinated with coated cracked maize vaccine was 2.54 during the first vaccination; and during the booster vaccination, the titter increased to 2.92. Among the chickens vaccinated via ocular route, 90% (during the first vaccination) and 84.2% (during the booster vaccination) have titer above the protection titer of 3. Similarly, for chickens under cracked maize group, 54 and 74.8% of them were able to produce geometric mean log2 HI antibody titers ≥ 3. The current experimental study indicates that cracked maize can be good candidate carrier of I-2 vaccine virus with easy administration methods for village chickens.
Key words: Antibody, chickens, cracked maize, ocular, haemagglutination inhibition, I-2 vaccine.
