How Serious a Threat is Salmonella

[chixie]

I have several chickens (all babies raised in house until 6 weeks) (4) red eared slider turtles(used to be in the house-now outside) and (4) leopard geckos also in my house... And I have never had a problem with salmonella... just keep everything clean and disinfected and lots of hand washing....

 

[ryanroth]

Hello All--
New to BYC, been reading messages for a few days and this is a topic I feel I can give some answers to. I am a Large Animal Veterinarian who has been around Salmonella on a lot of cases. I see horses are perfectly normal one day, pipe streaming diarrhea the next and boom it is salmonella.
Salmonella is a great threat, but most can be prevented by using common sense. Every animal has the potential to carry Salmonella (nonclinical carrier). Horses, cows, pigs, poultry... they all have the potential to carry salmonella and never shed it. One stressful moment in the animals life and they start to shed it. Wash your hands, don't eat the chicken poop, you get the idea! I was part of a hospital study a few years ago and we found anywhere from 20-30% of horses carry salmonella and are nonclinical shedders meaning that it is in their feces and they don't show any clinical signs of salmonellosis. Same thing applies to various animal species. Final Point: Don't forget to wash your hands!

 

[Ms~Silkie~Girl]

I bring my silkie in the house all the time, and there ain't no salmonella in our house. Obviously wash your hands when your done taking care of your chickens.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Your personal gut health is going to determine whether or not you will pick up the bug, and how bad it will be.
75% of your immune system is in the gut, so if your flora is imbalanced, you will be more likely to get sick from any thing.

To help understand this, lets look at the gut of a commercial grain fed beef cow.
Because cows are herbavores, they are unable to properly convert grain.
Their gut becomes abnormally acidic, and as a result, they have a bacteria called feed lot E.Coli.
If you eat contaminated meat, your acidic stomach matches the acidic stomach of that cow, and where we would normally be able to effectivly fight off the E.Coli,
it instead thrives and wreaks havoc.

So, keep your chickens healthy, without the use of antibiotics, and improper feeding. Keep yourself healthy in the same way.
Then the chances of you having a problem with Salmonella will be next to none.

 

[cassie]

The TSC warning is a CYA thing, as in cover your a**. If salmonella were really all that much of a threat, I, my family, and most of the BYCers would all be sick or dead. We weren't real big on washing after handling animals when I was growing up and we all survived. On the other hand, kids nowadays are kept so clean their immune systems don't have a chance to develop normally and they get really sick from simple contact with livestock and poultry. Contact that wouldn't have affected kids of my generation at all.

 

[M To The Maxx]

In my 2 years (a little bit more) of raising chickens I have been around a lot of poop and have never gotten salmonella. I always wash my hands and then after that I put on hand sanitizer.

 

[cassie]

Quote:
You might find it of interest to know that the e coli contamination of some unpasteurized Olalla (sp) apple juice that sickened some kids was from deer droppings.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Quote:
You might find it of interest to know that the e coli contamination of some unpasteurized Olalla (sp) apple juice that sickened some kids was from deer droppings.

Again, gut health plays into the factor, regardless of where it came from.
Getting sick, and how sick, is very dependant on your immune system.

 

[steelersfan43]

My cousins son got salmonella from a dentist office waiting room by playing with toys. You have a chance of getting sick anywhere. Wash your hands, don't do stuff thats gross and you'll be good

We brood our baby chicks in the house, and have no problems. The kids wash their hands when they are done playing with them, we wear latex gloves when cleaning out the brooders. Just basic common sense stuff like everyone else said

 

[Chieftain]

We have a policy here: We wash our hands before we handle the chicks to protect them, and then wash our hand again when we are done to protect us.