Don't all chickens have salmonilla like all humans have staph? Sorry newbie question
Yes, but the strain of it can vary. We humans have E.coli in our GI tracts, as do cattle, and other mammals, but the strains are different. The E. coli in our GI tracts don't make us sick, but the E. coli from the GI tract of a cow very likely would, and the strain will determine the severity of illness. Some are so aggressive and grow so quickly, the amount of the toxins secreted by those bacteria is so large they can cause precipitous drops in blood pressure, and result in total organ failure(kidneys are the most susceptible.
The same with Salmonella. Each of us who have chickens are exposed to Salmonella just by owning chickens. We reduce the AMOUNT we are exposed to/ingest by common sense food handling/cooking procedures. But that is "our" Salmonella and our bodies make some immunity to it. Can it make us sick? Absolutely. But it will most likely take a larger amount to make us sick than someone who has no contact with poultry.
That said, if we are exposed to Salmonella Heidelberg(the strain in the Foster Farms recall) we could become very sick......does some of the immunity we have to "our" Salmonella help us fight the Heidelberg strain....possibly. This strain has resistance to multiple drugs that would normally work in your "run of the mill" Salmonella, not that there is really any run of the mill Salmonella, but I think you see my point.
You mentioned Staph in humans. We all have it on our skin. The most common is Staph epidermidis, but we can have other strains present as well. Staph epi can cause infection, but in humans it is usually a very localized one(ingrown hair or ingrown toe nail, small cut or scrape) and our bodies fight it and get rid of it without antibiotics because our bodies have some immunity to it. The strain that causes most severe infections is Staph. aureus. It is the resistant strain of it that is the worst....MRSA, because of its resistance to multiple drugs.
The long and short of it is that our backyard flocks are less likely to transmit a Salmonella infection to us than chicken from a commercial production.
