Keep a clean coop

[aart]

My town offers salmonella tests for backyard flocks.

How exactly do they do this?

 

[K0k0shka]

How exactly do they do this?

I haven’t looked further into it. There’s a chicken-keeping brochure with information and town resources and a contact number and email address for salmonella testing. When I get my chickens I will ask.

 

[aart]

I haven’t looked further into it. There’s a chicken-keeping brochure with information and town resources and a contact number and email address for salmonella testing. When I get my chickens I will ask.

Do you have to be permitted, inspected, etc, like in many urban municipalities?
Is the testing voluntary or mandatory?
Wonders if the test results are private or the 'authorities' are notified.
I'm not usually 'big brother is watching us' paranoid....but my jaded skeptic needle is reading high.

 

[K0k0shka]

Do you have to be permitted, inspected, etc, like in many urban municipalities?
Is the testing voluntary or mandatory?
Wonders if the test results are private or the 'authorities' are notified.
I'm not usually 'big brother is watching us' paranoid....but my jaded skeptic needle is reading high.

Permitted and inspected to keep chickens in general, or to have them tested? No permits or inspections necessary to keep chickens, you just need to notify animal control and let them know how many chickens you have, just so they can have an idea of who keeps what where. No restrictions on coop placement. Most are right on the property line because yards are small, not enough room for buffer zones. No restrictions on roosters unless a neighbor complains. Salmonella testing is recommended, for the sake of the community’s health, but not mandatory. The town is pretty cool about chicken keeping and lots of folks have chickens. The main animal control officer has backyard chickens herself and gives people advice (we have a town group for chicken fans on facebook and she answers questions).

 

[Rietta]

A shout out to those composting chicken poo.. The pile must heat up to kill this kind of stuff before it goes into the garden. Also the reason I don't let the chickens in there. Water splashes onto plants along with it dirt and debris. Just imagine the parasite eggs, MUST HEAT UP AND AGE COMPOST Edited to say I should get a thermometer. I can not stick my hand into the pile it is too hot.

 

[ValerieJ]

Well, I suspect that as long as salmonella has been a concern, it has existed in both commercial and backyard flocks. Every time they can come up with a study like this, they have a segue to regulating something new. Then, regulation means eventual inspections, and well, that costs money, so there will be fees. I read that article and can't remember the numbers exactly, but I think I came up with less than a percent of total cases of salmonella were due to backyard chickens.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Every time I see this story coming up I chalk it up to Big Ag sponsored research. Pfft!...

 

[aart]

Permitted and inspected to keep chickens in general, or to have them tested? No permits or inspections necessary to keep chickens, you just need to notify animal control and let them know how many chickens you have, just so they can have an idea of who keeps what where. No restrictions on coop placement. Most are right on the property line because yards are small, not enough room for buffer zones. No restrictions on roosters unless a neighbor complains. Salmonella testing is recommended, for the sake of the community’s health, but not mandatory. The town is pretty cool about chicken keeping and lots of folks have chickens. The main animal control officer has backyard chickens herself and gives people advice (we have a town group for chicken fans on facebook and she answers questions).

I meant just to keep them.
Sounds good, thanks for the details.
FB groups sound really cool, hats off to the ACO!

 

[CatWhisperer]

While I keep my own coops clean and use good personal and flock hygiene I am shocked at the filth surround chickens in pictures on this and other sites. It doesn’t surprise me that there is a lot of salmonella in backyard flocks. The way some people keep their chickens they deserve it.

 

[K0k0shka]

While I keep my own coops clean and use good personal and flock hygiene I am shocked at the filth surround chickens in pictures on this and other sites. It doesn’t surprise me that there is a lot of salmonella in backyard flocks. The way some people keep their chickens they deserve it.

That is unnecessarily harsh and judgmental. Chickens aren’t cats. They don’t need their litter sifted and scooped daily and their coops sprayed with sanitizer like I’ve seen lots of other people do on this forum, and judge from their sanitized moral high horses. This cleanliness mania is very recent and more typical of hobbyist chicken keepers, not actual farmers with experience. People have been keeping chickens for thousands of years without obsessive sanitation and they’ve been fine. Ask your grandma if she scooped chicken poop every day and “kept a clean coop”.

For the record, so far I haven’t seen any photos on this forum that would merit the reaction of “EW, this is so gross that they deserve sickness and death for it”. Just... chill for a bit.