Salmonella Question

[Lacrystol]

It's is possible for someone to send some eggs with salmonella and not knowing the eggs have it. Try to hatch it , and now the baby chick be prone to have it? or is it impossible to hatch a chick because the bacteria will kill whatever grows inside. Not sure how the salmonella thing works...

 

[SarahFair]

Not sure but I Think the bacteria would kill the chick

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
It depends upon what type of salmonella you are talking about. There are over one thousand types of salmonella, most being species specific. There are several types that are of the largest concern in chickens. Salmonella pullorum and salmonella gallinarum can cause illness and death in chicks and young birds, but generally don't affect people. These two types caused huge losses in the poultry industry before the NPIP program was created to screen for them. Pullorum can be transmitted vertically from hen to egg to chick. I've seen studies that concluded that gallinarum is not easily passed to chicks via the hatching egg.

Salmonella enteritidis is of concern in table eggs. It does not affect the health of the hens, but can be problematic to people. Most cases of contamination in the past were due to horizontal transmission, that is the egg shell having picked up SE from the environment vs the hen. That is why eggs are sanitized at the processing plants to remove any contamination from the shell before it can migrate into the egg. The big salmonella scare that happened last year was due to vertical transmission though. The hens were riddled with SE from having eaten contaminated meat and bone meal and the bacteria found its way into the hens reproductive tracts causing them to lay contaminated eggs. This is not common. In fact, the news report at the time quoted government officials with saying that they had never seen an outbreak like that before where contaminated eggs were being laid vs picking up contamination from the environment.

To answer your question, yes, it can be passed through the egg to the chick. The egg will hatch and the bird may have the bacteria. That bacteria can affect the health of the chick or the health of the people, depending upon the type of salmonella.

What is your concern?

 

[Lacrystol]

Wow, didn't know there was different types, The reason I ask is because my sister in AZ (Im in OHio)told me not to purchase any eggs because of a bad case of salmonella going around. I had no clue it could affect a baby hatching chick.. Wow, thanks for the information..

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Ahhh... Well that's a different matter than what I described. There have been a number of cases reported this year of children getting sick from salmonella from handling chicks. The chicks in question were traced back to a specific hatchery. This was a different type of salmonella than the ones I described.

Some forms of salmonella are common in all animals and in the animals' environment. It is generally advised to not let toddlers handle chicks as they tend to put their fingers in their mouths a lot. For others it is advised to wash your hands after working with animals. It's that simple. While the CDC has a duty to trace these outbreaks back to their source, proper hygiene can overcome most of the "problems" attributed to "contaminated" animals, much in the same way that thoroughly cooking eggs can pretty much eliminate any risk of salmonellosis from eating them.