How do I know that my hens don't have salmonella?

[msm123]

I have twelve chickens and a rooster that live in a coop. Their water can get a little dirty sometimes, and I've seen watery stools. I want to eat their eggs, but I don't know if it's safe.

 

[Grand-hen-ma]

Hi, great question. I have 25 chickens who love to scratch and dig to China. Every time I go out to check the girls, their water is dirty. I also have water buckets at different levels and they too, get dirty. I just clean each one several times a day and make sure to clean up any poop droppings, to keep things cleaner and the fly population down. Sometime chicken poo can be watery or mustard colored. This is OK. But if it happens all the time, you might want to have a vet check things out.

Oh and you should keep the nesting boxes very clean. Eggs with chicken poo can carry disease. My girls will wait until I go and clean out any mess in their nesting boxes before they will lay any eggs. When they see me coming they know they will get treats to eat while I clean their pens. The girls will line up and as each box is cleaned and fluffed up, they will begin laying. And if I am too slow, they let me know about it.

I think if you keep the area clean and free of poo and get rid of any cracked eggs and give them fresh water and food every day, then the eggs are safe to eat.

Good luck

 

[Fred's Hens]

Pretty likely they will.

Now, before panic strikes, realize that nature is filled with bacteria and other such things. Just the way it is. Getting sick from such things require a boat load ingestion of a culture of it. We likely come in contact with salmonella daily and it like is everywhere, and on most everything, in that sense.

It causes problems only when people do not practice good hygiene when handling food products. Google is your friend for safe food handling advisories. The same searches will turn up gobs of advisories about safe cooking of chicken and safe cooking of eggs as well. Bringing meat or eggs up to a prescribed temperature for the requisite period of time and such things are killed.