Question-How easy is it for backyard chickens to get salmonella?

[Little Chickens12]

I recently got four adult chickens from a friend who is moving and I was just wondering how easy it is for backyard chickens to get salmonella, what the symptoms are (in chickens), and how easy it is for humans to catch it from backyard chickens. Thanks!

 

[ronott1]

Not from what I understand. The cases that have been in the news were hens that came infected at hatch from the hatchery. One was Mt. Healthy, two years in a row.

 

[DocBirdBrain]

There's a fair chance your chickens already have a strain of salmonella living in their intestines (Salmonella enteritidis). It's no big deal for the chickens, but it's the reason why it's recommended to wash your hands after handling poultry.
The types of salmonella that can be passed into the unlaid egg are a different matter. One of the most recent commercial outbreaks involved rodent contamination of chicken feed, and the bacteria was passed into the egg and then into consumers.
Salmonella gallinarum and Salmonella pullorum have been aggressively eradicated in commercial flocks, but the bacteria strains are still out there. Transmission is transovarian (through the mom to the egg) or fecal-oral.