A vaccine is created for the target pathogen and the egg laying hens are immunized. Twenty-two (22) days later, the eggs are broken and separated. Egg yolks go for extraction of IgY and egg whites are sent back for food production. Once the IgY antibodies are removed, the residual egg yolks are now returned to food production.

Antibody Yield from Hens

• A laying hen can produce approximately 300 eggs annually and the volume of one egg yolk is approximately 15 ml.

• This could supply close to 100g of antibody per hen per year.

• Each Egg contains approximately 3-5mg IgY per ml of yolk (70-100mg of total IgY antibody depending upon the size of the egg)

• Of this total and depending on the concentration level required for commercial effectiveness, our technology can generate as little as10% or as much as 75% antibody against a specific antigen.

Advantages of Antibodies from Egg Yolks over Mammalian Antibodies

• A single egg contains as much antibody as an average bleed from a rabbit. In addition, egg collection is simple and noninvasive.Eggs are generally laid on a daily basis, whereas a rabbit may only be bled once every 2-3 weeks.

• Chickens require only a one month immunization regimen to obtain high titers of polyclonal antibody. To ensure a rabbit is producing high titers of antibody, the immunization procedure requires up to 2-3 months.

• Similar amounts of antigen are required to immunize chickens and rabbits, but daily egg collection occurs over a month and titers generally remain high during this period. A rabbit may be bled only once every 2-3 weeks and the amount of antibody contained in the sera is equivalent to the amount of antibody in a single egg.

• Because the phylogenetic distance between birds and mammals is great, chickens are very useful for producing antibodies against conserved mammalian proteins. Typically, 1-5% of rabbit sera will be comprised of antibodies against a specific mammalian antigen. About 2-10% of a chicken egg yolk is comprised of antigen-specific antibodies. In addition, very highly conserved mammalian proteins sometimes fail to elicit an immune response in rabbits but antibodies against these proteins are often successfully produced in the avian system.