Consumer reports article on salmonella in store bought birds

[Buster52]

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Which they need because such operations are so unnatural and unhealthy. Not a good argument for your side, Bossroo.

 

[Reinbeau]

Let's get back to the original subject of this thread, please

 

[FireTigeris]

Careful virus (common cold) and bacteria (salmonella) are two different critters- they both cause illness but you cant use one as a substitute for the other.

Here's interesting stuff about chlorine, like pool water and drinking water and some of the different compounds used at different strengths.

Purification and disinfection

Chlorine is an important chemical for water purification (such as water treatment plants), in disinfectants, and in bleach. Chlorine in water is more than three times more effective as a disinfectant against Escherichia coli than an equivalent concentration of bromine, and is more than six times more effective than an equivalent concentration of iodine.[31]

Chlorine is usually used (in the form of hypochlorous acid) to kill bacteria and other microbes in drinking water supplies and public swimming pools. In most private swimming pools chlorine itself is not used, but rather sodium hypochlorite, formed from chlorine and sodium hydroxide, or solid tablets of chlorinated isocyanurates. Even small water supplies are now routinely chlorinated.[3] (See also chlorination)

It is often impractical to store and use poisonous chlorine gas for water treatment, so alternative methods of adding chlorine are used. These include hypochlorite solutions, which gradually release chlorine into the water, and compounds like sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione (dihydrate or anhydrous), sometimes referred to as "dichlor", and trichloro-s-triazinetrione, sometimes referred to as "trichlor". These compounds are stable while solid and may be used in powdered, granular, or tablet form. When added in small amounts to pool water or industrial water systems, the chlorine atoms hydrolyze from the rest of the molecule forming hypochlorous acid (HOCl) which acts as a general biocide killing germs, micro-organisms, algae, and so on.

Antimicrobial efficacy

The broad-spectrum effectiveness of bleach, for example sodium hypochlorite, owes to the nature of the chemical reactivity of the bleach with the microbes. Rather than act in an inhibitory or specific toxic fashion in the manner of antibiotics, the reaction with the microbial cells quickly and irreversibly denatures, and often destroys the pathogen. Specifically, with sodium hypochlorite it is found that:

* the bleach attacks proteins in bacteria, causing them to clump up much like an egg that has been boiled,

* when exposed to bleach, the heat shock protein of bacteria become active in an attempt to protect other proteins in the bacteria from losing their chemical structure, forming clumps that would eventually die off, and

* the human immune system produces hypochlorous acid in response to infection to kill bacterial invaders

* the lipid membrane of the bacteria is destroyed, popped like a balloon if you would, as a result of the bleach being very basic.

As noted, the range of micro-organisms effectively killed by bleach, and in particular sodium hypochlorite, is extensive, making it extremely versatile.

blah- I was looking for what temperatures that chlorine (food processing type sodium hypochlorite ) was inactivated at. but didn't find it in my lazy fog.

Oh and I have well water form the FL aquifer... so no chlorine/fluoride for me.​

 

[Bossroo]

At least they are doing something about it. Large commercial producers do not have a monopoly on pathogen laden environments. Not everyone even knows what to do or even look for an answer to a potential problem that they don't even know anything about. Oh look, there is a salmonella lurking right under someone's fingernail, a couple dozen on a shoe, and another hundred under a car tire, or a thousand in a sparrow's or mouse droppings in a feed traugh. How pathogen free is the poopy water that is dumped into the family veggie garden from a kiddy pool that was just occupied by ducks and the chickens immediately walk through that spilled soupy goop chasing a tasty bug. What about the family dog, a fox, racoon, possom, or a field mouse that poops on the free range grasses that attracts a number of flies and other vector insects, and we all know that our feathered friends love those bugs. How about the compost pile, is everone of them completely sterile when the chickens scratch through them looking for maggots, worms and bugs. Chickens are exposed to all kinds of pathogens in everyones environs every second on a daily basis as well as ourselves. Thank goodness for our very effective immune system. I hope that the meal is cooked to the proper temperature to make it safe to eat. Dinner is served!

 

[Brunty_Farms]

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You are far too kind, Jeff. It's all book knowledge. A librarian doesn't know everything, they just know where to look for it. All of the practical stuff I have learned from people like you and Al and Jaku and Sandspoultry and Steve of same and...

Oh, and my birds have taught me a thing or two.

I would quibble with you about this just being a matter of cost. The costs of conventional agriculture are very high. They are just hidden, in form of subsidies, pollution (including ocean dead zones), health costs, and depletion of finite fossil fuels. It is completely unsustainable, meaning (as Michael Polan would say) it can't go on this way.

But that's probably grist for a discussion in Random Thoughts as opposed to one on meat birds.

Ya, your right. I wish that it would change.... but reality is that it's going to take a lot more backyard producers... and a whole heck of a lot of hope and wishfull thinking. However I think the organic/sustainable movement has made it's stake in todays society and isn't going anywhere.... it seems to me it's more than just a fad.