Lice vaccine trial 200.26
The aim of the study is to analyze the efficacy a 200.26 vaccine against a natural sea lice challenge in small scale sea cages.
We estimate the distress level for this trial to be between low and moderate. The point of increased distress is the increased numbers of vaccinations the fish will go through before sea phase as well as several stress phases related to sampling in the sea phase.
The expected benefit for this trial is the overall reduction in lice numbers in commercial production and therefore also lowered needs for lice treatments both chemical and mechanical.
Fish number in the trial is set to 15600 individuals in total. These will be divided into three vaccine groups in triplicate (800 per land cage and 1000 fish per sea pen). The number was decided to uphold a commercial density whilst having a stringent sampling regime.
For this trial no alternatives to Atlantic Salmon are viable (replace). The cage sizes are only 5X5X5 meters lowering the number of fish needed to uphold a commercial density (reduce). For this trial all major handling are done in the land phase this reducing the chance of bacterial infections in sea phase. The handling in the sea are done in the summer and fall. this lowers the chance of winter wounds. The spacing of operations is set to lower overall stress as much as possible whilst simulating a realistic commercial production.
All sampling and lice counting will be done on fish euthanized using an overdose of finquel vet.
We estimate the distress level for this trial to be between low and moderate. The point of increased distress is the increased numbers of vaccinations the fish will go through before sea phase as well as several stress phases related to sampling in the sea phase.
The expected benefit for this trial is the overall reduction in lice numbers in commercial production and therefore also lowered needs for lice treatments both chemical and mechanical.
Fish number in the trial is set to 15600 individuals in total. These will be divided into three vaccine groups in triplicate (800 per land cage and 1000 fish per sea pen). The number was decided to uphold a commercial density whilst having a stringent sampling regime.
For this trial no alternatives to Atlantic Salmon are viable (replace). The cage sizes are only 5X5X5 meters lowering the number of fish needed to uphold a commercial density (reduce). For this trial all major handling are done in the land phase this reducing the chance of bacterial infections in sea phase. The handling in the sea are done in the summer and fall. this lowers the chance of winter wounds. The spacing of operations is set to lower overall stress as much as possible whilst simulating a realistic commercial production.
All sampling and lice counting will be done on fish euthanized using an overdose of finquel vet.