Triple La Sota re‐vaccinations can protect laying chickens for 3 months against drop in egg production caused by velogenic viscerotropic Newcastle disease virus infection

One hundred and ten Isa Brown layers were vaccinated with La Sota, once at point of lay at 18 weeks and three times at peak of lay which occurred at 27–29 weeks of age. Thereafter, they were weekly monitored for haemagglutination inhibition (HI) antibody decline. The first batch A of the layers were challenged with velogenic viscerotropic Newcastle disease (vvND) virus (vvNDV) on day 24 post‐vaccination (PV), when the geometric mean titre (GMT) was 84.4, batch B were challenged on day 48 PV at GMT of 42.2, while batch C were challenged on day 97 PV at GMT of 21.1. The individual chicken HI antibody titres of the 10 layers in batch C at the day of challenge were: 7 layers had HI titres of 16, 2 layers had HI titres of 32 and 1 layer had HI titres of 64. Each challenge in the three batches produced no clinical signs including drop in egg production. But there was initial swelling of the spleen followed by atrophy with high antibody responses. The virus was recovered in all the cloacal swabs on days 3–9 post‐challenge (PC) at low titres. On days 145 PV and 48, post‐Batch C challenge the remaining hyperimmunized unchallenged layers demonstrated a drop in total % egg production (p < .05) and changes in egg quality. The HI GMT was 256. The virus was recovered in all the cloacal swabs on days 3–9 following appearance of clinical signs. There was no mortality in the experiment. Based on the above observations, it is concluded that triple La Sota re‐vaccination can protect layers against a drop in egg production in areas where vvNDV infection is enzootic.