US Poultry and the US Poultry Foundation have announced the completion of a funded research project at the University of Georgia in which researchers investigated the cause and prevention of false layer syndrome.

Dr. Brian Jordan, Departments of Population Health and Poultry Science, University of Georgia, and colleagues at the University of Georgia have completed a research project to determine if infection with infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) alone, especially the IBV variant strain DMV/1639/11, could induce cystic oviduct formation and lead to false layer syndrome. They also evaluated the efficacy of a day-of-hatch vaccination at preventing this clinical presentation.

Findings showed that multiple IBV types can cause cystic oviduct formation that leads to false layer syndrome. Further, vaccines alone may influence the severity of lesions after challenge, but are not sufficient to prevent the oviduct from being affected from a pathogenic early challenge.

The research was made possible in part by an endowing Foundation gift from Cargill and is part of the Association’s Comprehensive Research Program encompassing all phases of poultry and egg production and processing.