Do we use MRNA vaccines in our fish?

Do we use MRNA vaccines in our fish? Do we inject them with antibiotics?

We’ve seen a ‘spike’ in these questions recently, and I wanted to speak to them directly.

No, we don’t use MRNA vaccines in our fish.
No, we don’t inject fish with antibiotics.

That’s the short answer, but because you’re talking to a farmer, you get the long one..!

When we sell juvenile fish to farms in the Great Lakes, we do vaccinate them.

There is a particularly worrisome emerging pathogen in Ontario waters called Lactococcus, and it can kill more than half of the fish it infects.

Because we want to keep our animals safe AND because we’d rather avoid using antibiotics, we use a low-tech vaccine. It’s essentially a dead copy of the pathogen that helps the fish develop immunity. We’ll either immerse the fish in a “dip” so they absorb in their gills, or we’ll inject it below their pelvic fin.

It’s safe for the fish, and safe for humans. There are no additives, chemicals or other things that stick around in the fish. We used it for the first time last year and the results for Ontario farmers was transformatively good.

As a side note, vaccines are common with fish and other farm animals. More than 10 million fish are released in Ontario waters every year to be caught later as “wild” fish, and many of these are vaccinated against a handful of pathogens. And most other farm animals are vaccinated too. Did you know organic chickens can still receive vaccines?

Would we prefer not to vaccinate the fish? Of course, we want our animals to be as happy and healthy without the need of these interventions. We manage the vast majority of fish health concerns through prevention (low densities, careful handling, biosecurity, nutrition and natural products).

But climate change is altering the environment and bringing newer and scarier pathogens. And it’s happening much faster than the fish can adapt naturally. This low-tech vaccine is a good solution for animal welfare and for keeping medication usage low.

It is not an MRNA vaccine. To our knowledge, there aren’t MNRA vaccines even available for fish.

Now what about injecting fish with antibiotics?

We’ve heard this fish-cious rumour going around too. We have never injected fish with antibiotics. We raise our fish free of antibiotics and to the organic standard. Find out more.

We’re a motley crew of farmers here at Springhills who are always trying to do right by our animals. That’s why we always appreciate when YOU ask the tough questions about where your food comes from (and especially how animals are treated). If you ever have any questions, cast us a line!

—RJ, Arlen and the Springhills family