Salmonella poisoning. What do I do for my chicks?

[kathleenf62]

We have just started raising chickens the first of May. Everything has been going fine until a couple of weeks ago. My husband got very sick, had the worst case of diarrhea I've ever seen. I took him to the ER and found out he has salmonella positing. My question is, how do we find out if any of our chicks are sick? We know that he had to have got it from them. We've been washing our hands after handling them but must have failed. I'm scared......what do I do?

 

[seminolewind]

It could have been from other food he's eaten.
I guess you could take a poo sample and have it tested by a state animal lab, or maybe a vet. But I'd also be thinking of what he could have eaten, or how you prepare your raw chicken.

 

[joan1708]

I read an article from Mother Earth News today on facebook that there is a Salmonella outbreak and they have tracked it down the chicks sold at feed stores and mail-order hatcheries. I think it's more likely than not that your husbands infection came from your chickens. I would not let any children around your chickens until this is taken care of as it can be deadly in children. I would treat the whole flock for salmonella. See below : it was printed in 1992 so maybe there is a better way now. Your local Ag school may have info.

U.S. Approves Chicken Treatment To Cut Salmonella
By MARIAN BURROS
Published: October 14, 1992

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THE United States Department of Agriculture today approved the use of an inexpensive chemical process to drastically reduce salmonella in chickens. Salmonella, a ubiquitous bacterium that can cause serious gastrointestinal illness, even death, is found in up to 60 percent of the fresh chickens sold in the United States.
Trisodium phosphate, a chemical used to emulsify processed cheese, has been found to be effective in destroying salmonella in more than 95 percent of the chickens that have been tested. The cost, says Rhone-Poulenc Inc., in Cranbury, N.J., the company that invented the process, will be less than a penny a bird. In the procedure, chickens are dipped in a solution containing trisodum phosphate after they have been chilled.
But the Agriculture Department warned that the use of trisodium phosphate should not lull consumers into thinking that it is safe to eliminate sanitary steps in handling chicken. "We don't want consumers to get a sense of overconfidence," said Dr. Jill Hollingsworth, assistant to the administrator of the department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. "We are not offering TSP as a cure-all for all pathogens. Nothing is 100 percent effective."

 

[gale65]

I think that tsp solution is for dead chickens. The kind you eat.