I am looking for information on identifying animals which may be carrying salmonella. I am a nursing student, and just studied the high incidence of salmonella poisoning. I am wondering how to ensure I don't have problems with my chickens, and their eggs. Thanks for any input!

-- pattie metz (pmetz@arcfc.org), April 19, 2000

Answers

Response to meat safety

I have several things to say about this rising trend of salmonella contamination. The first thing I have to say is that in the years since the discovery of salmonella bacteria in eggs the incidence has risen I believe primarily because the government told people to stop eating raw eggs. Up until then people ate them as a matter of course. Throughout my childhood I lived on homemade eggnog. The simple truth is that people have been following the government's instructions and their immune systems no longer have to fight the bacteria and when they get it they can't handle it. I have a friend whoo takes a bite of raw hamburger everytime she cooks it and yet she has never died of nor even had e-coli. The simple truth is that the governments cure is making people sick. That and the fact that Chickens are currently raised in the most artificial environment and are being given massive amounts of antibiotics. This creates stronger and stronger bacteria and creates versions of the bug our bodies have never dealt with. If you want healthy birds, feed them well, give them plenty of sun, and a source of fresh grass and bugs. In addition, make sure you collect your eggs regularly, and don't give antibiotics unless absolutely necessary.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@calinet.com), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

I think Little Bit is right, though I wouldn't go so far as to eat raw meat! But we had homemade eggnog when we were growing up, and never got sick -- I still put a raw egg in when I make a smoothie. And we've never had any illness from homegrown eggs, chickens, or other meat. I would suggest, though, if someone wasn't raised this way, they might want to start out with small amounts of the foods that are claimed to have problems. That way, just in case there are any germs hiding there, you would have a chance to start slowly building up an immunity. But I doubt that there would be any problems. More likely to get sick from a polluted well -- do have your well water tested -- check with the county extension agent for help on that. And, while we may have some immunity to the bugs in our wells, we can't claim that eating home-grown food gives any help there. Consider some of the devastating epidemics that have swept over this country at a time when processed food didn't exist. So make sure your water supply is clean.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

I believe the main reason there is salmonella in commercially raised chickens is the way they are raised. I live .2 mile from 12 commercial chicken houses, and there are over 40 houses in a one mile radius of me. The commercial people do not clean out their houses between each batch of chickens, but only clean every 4th or 5th batch. They spray the inside of the houses with some chemical, which then runs out of the houses, down their drive and into a ditch where rainwater later carries it to the creek. Then they pile in loads of clean sand over the existing chicken litter. They leave many of the dead birds on the floor until they are finally cleaned out in the big cleanups. They just plain lose a lot of chickens. The dead truck as it is called goes by here on its way to and from the chicken houses. They usually collect 5 to 8 fifty gallon size cans of dead birds from these 12 houses each day by the time the birds are 5 weeks old. Death rates escalate rapidly as the chicks grow. If something happens and the birds have to be left until 8 weeks of age, the former farm keeper here said that they only have 50% of the birds go out to market that came in as day olds. That tells you that disease is rampant in the houses. While most of the birds are probably killed by coccidious, I still feel that the poor husbandry is what causes salmonella in the birds. While they take greater care to keep the egg farms clean, when you have thousands of birds confined day and night, year in and year out, it makes for health problems.

I doubt you have to worry about salmonella in the home flock because you are going to be cleaner with your handling. You won't leave dead chickens laying around, plus you won't have thousands and thousands of chickens.

By the way, the creek that I mentioned earlier no longer ever has any fish in it and very few crayfish or frogs. The frogs that hatch out in the water near the chicken houses are usually deformed, but that is becoming a nationwide, if not worldwide, situation so I cannot blame that entirely on the chicken operation. I do blame the general lack of life in the creek on them. When I was a kid, that creek always had some living thing in sight. Now you seldom see anything living in the water, not even bugs.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

Pattie: I believe the other responders are correct, it makes a difference in how YOU raise and care for your animals, and possibly we have built up immunities to some of these toxins. I know that while living in Korea ( I know, here I go again!)the local Korean people regularly ate shell fish that had been left out for days and not refrigerated. Figure that out. None of the pork, chicken, beef that was sold in the local markets was ever refrigerated,and they did not get botulism or salmonella from eating it. I would probably be dead if I had eaten any of it, however! They had heaping piles of dead chicken carcasses laying on tables for customers to pick through. YUK. Works for them, and probably because they have built up immunities to it. Jan

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

Green, I think you're right on the money concerning salmonella contamination of poultry and poultry products. That bad ole bug has been around for eons and has occasionally been killing us since antiquity. But why do we have such a higher incidence of it now? Several reasons. First, it's only been within the last 100 years that we've even known about salmonella and modern communication allows incidences of it to be reported much more frequently. But that's not the whole story. The main difference now, compared to 100 years ago, is how our food supply is produced. Factory farms with thousands of chickens were unheard of years ago. Simply the way these operations are run produces a HUGE breeding ground for not only salmonella, but hundreds if not thousands of other pathogens, coccidious, avian flue strains etc. etc. It's impossible for a farm manager to check his birds as homesteaders do with small flocks...soooo they loaded them up with antibiotics and hope for the best. Very poor husbandry as Green said. From a short term view this may make sense to the farmer. Long term it's disasterous. Over time, these pathogens become resistant or downright immune to all antibiotics. They have this bad habit of mutating into much more virulent strains. The farmer looses too many chickens, making his operations unprofitable. He gives up chickens and switches to say....hogs. Different species, same management, same long and short term problems and we're left with contaminated meat and a host of antibiotic resistant bugs. Lets just hope some of them don't make the jump to humans as happened in Hong Kong a few years ago. Same problems with feed lot cattle and e-coli. The basic e-coli strains have been around a long, long time as well. We all have several different strain in our bodys all the time. It's the mutated strains and the ones we don't normally come in contact with that are the problem. Feed lots, chicken houses, same management practices, same problems. As though the rediculously high use of antibiotics in humans, many times just to make the patient happy, wasn't bad enough, now modern Ag has gotten in one it. Massive use of antibiotics in livestock has the potential of being far more harmful to the human race than any emerging disease from third world countries. Our undoing may not come from invading the rain forests, but from back home in our very own food supply. There are currently several strains of Strep and Staph that are somewhat resistant to our last line of antibiotic defense, Vancomycine. A new class of antibiotics has come out now, can't remember the name, which will hopefully give us more time to clean up our act.

-- Steve in TN (lynswim@mindspring.com), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

Yes, but as long as they can keep coming up with new antibiotics, will our act get cleaned up? I don't think so, not until we have some new epidemic that wipes out half the world's population (there's the answer for those of you who are worried about over-population! :-(

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

Pattie,

For more info on salmonella, check out the CDC website www.cdc.gov. Click on "health topics A to Z" on the left side of their home page. It's easier to use than their Search option. Though a lot of the info here is the same as reported through the main stream media there's still a lot of unpublicized stuff. One of their main recommendations in controlling salmonella is clean animal husbandry.

-- Steve in TN (lynswim@mindspring.com), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

Kathleen,

Good point. Unless forced to, I doubt any improvements in factory raised meat and eggs will occur. As to keeping up with new antibiotics, the new "class" just approved by FDA is the first new one in 35 years. It has a whole new method of operation and is supposidly better than good ole vanco. Time will tell, but 35 YEARS! The pharmaceutical guys don't put near as much money into basic antibiotic research as say something REALLY useful like Rogain. ;-) There's just not as much return on dollars invested in antibiotics. Thus another problem.

-- Steve in TN (lynswim@mindspring.com), April 20, 2000.

Response to meat safety

Green, What state do you live in? If the poultry house truly is allowing water from their washdown to go to a creek without treatment, this is absolutely against federal law. I know this, I work in a government position which regulates wastewater contamination. I suggest that you call the department in your state which oversees wastewater handling and file a complaint. I investigate complaints in my state and it is very difficult to know of such things unless private citizens make complaints. My state will take anonymous complaints if you wish to remmain anonymous.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), April 20, 2000.