13.01.2013

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has awarded funding of £550,000 to the Moredun Research Institute in Scotland, in collaboration with Pfizer Animal Health.
The research grant has been awarded to boost research into the development of a vaccine to protect hens against red mites. The team's approach is to determine whether it might be possible to vaccinate laying hens using specific extracts of the mites thus inducing an immune response in the hens that will attack and kill the mites when they take a blood meal from an immunized hen. Infestation of hen houses with the poultry red mite is a major health concern of the European poultry industry with significant economic losses. The mites live, off-host, in inaccessible areas of the cages during daylight and emerge during darkness to feed on the hens, biting through the skin to feed on blood. Infestation with these mites has important animal welfare implications including anaemia, feather-pecking and an increased incidence of cannibalism, thus having a significant impact on productivity.