Injection vaccines are quickly becoming the method of choice for farmed fish species kept in high densities, mainly due to the long-term protection they provide for the fish. In order to ensure proper immunization, animal welfare and sustainability, it is important that the vaccinations are done accurately and swiftly.
Almost all farmed Atlantic salmon is currently injected with up to three different vaccines in the abdominal cavity, and sometimes also intramuscularly before outset to sea. The majority of fish are vaccinated by hand, but vaccination by machine is becoming increasingly more common in salmon, trout and sea bass farming. The first automatic vaccinations of tilapia were performed earlier this year. Current manual injectors can inject one or two vaccines intraperitoneally or muscularly, but it is not possible to inject in two different locations simultaneously. Machines offer a greater vaccination rate, accuracy, flexibility, and better biosecurity due to a minimum of people needing to visit the fish farming location. Innovations within machine vision and injection systems allows the machines to accurately inject the fish with several vaccines simultaneously, and the site and depth of injection is adapted to the individual fish. Injured or deformed fish can be excluded automatically, and populations can be graded by size during vaccination.
We will present the use of injection tools to enable vaccinations of large numbers of fish, while increasing production efficiency, improving sustainability and maintaining a high level of fish health.