11/23/2021: 

It is important to prevent poultry from becoming infected with pathogens, especially young chicks, with cleaning and disinfection of empty broiler houses playing an important role here. In 2019 GD launched the VIR check – the best test for assessing the effectiveness of broiler house cleaning and disinfection. Based on 10 swabs from 6-7 day old chicks, a quantitative multiplex PCR test assesses how many common intestinal viruses the chicks picked up in the first days of life.

Together with ForFarmers De Hoop and veterinarians, GD conducted a field study into the relationship between the VIR check and chick growth. A review of the data revealed a significant relationship between four groups within the VIR check and daily growth rates: chicks with lower scores grow faster. This resulted in a new VIR check score with four categories to give veterinarians and feed consultants further tools for a more focused approach to farm hygiene and disinfection.

The updated score now consists of the categories green, yellow, orange and red. Besides the fact that any poultry farmer would want to have fewer pathogens in their broiler houses, farmers also enjoy greater chick growth by putting effort into improving their farm's scores. If a farm improves from category red to category green, this will result in more than 100 grams of extra growth per chick in 6 weeks!

More about VIR check