two questions - is this possible?

[crusting]

My mother seems to be very wary of our chickens. She's been questioning me about their impact on our health. It's starting to confuse me a little, and so I have two questions I was hoping you guys could help answer:

1. Is it possible to catch a strep infection from chickens? I just got over a bad case of strep and my mom is convinced I caught it from the chickens.
(by the way, the chickens seem perfectly healthy...she just thinks they are carriers)

2. I gave her some eggs, and she said she found a thing inside one that looked like a segmented worm. ewwwww! we've been eating many of the eggs, but have never seen anything like this. I asked her if it was maybe the blood spot that we occasionally see, and she said no it was a larger segmented worm-like thing. what in the world could this be?

Thanks so much!

 

[mdbokc]

1. A person can get strep more easily when they have chicken pox as the bacteria can enter the body through the body lesions. That's about all I know for sure on that.

Strep typically occurs when you make contact with a person who has it. Strep is a bacteria and there are various strains of it. I think there is a bit of over reaction on this aspect.

2. Chickens can lay eggs with intestinal worms in them.

 

[teach1rusl]

Sounds like your mom is just looking for excuses NOT to have chickens.....lol.
And because of that, I would want to see the "worm" she found. Did you guys get a picture??? I remember reading a post saying that someone had found a rubber band in an egg, although it was never concluded whether it was true or not...

 

[High Roost Ranch]

Welcome to the BYC!

Without being 1001% positive, I am going to say no, you cannot get strep from a chicken. I think your mom is one of those people who are under the assumption that chickens are dirty, disease spreading animals. They aren't any more risky than half the people you run across on a daily basis in my personal opinion.

As far as the finding in the egg, you should have asked her to save the egg for you to see what she was talking about. Sometimes, I think the chalazea (the stringy anchors inside the egg at each end) can sometimes become partially separated and can look suspicious to someone already leery for some reason. Just to be on the safe side, you may want to run a round of dewormer through your flock, to cut out any of the parasite possibilities.

 

[kathyinmo]

If your chickens have a heavy worm infestation, yes there could be a worm in the egg. I would worm the flock.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2525157#p2525157

 

[crusting]

Thanks everyone. So I showed my mom a picture of the inside of an egg showing the chalaza, and she said yes that's what it was. Except it wasn't white, but kind of brownish red.

 

[CheshieChick13]

Quote:
As for your first question: You would be more likely to catch strep from picking up an item in a local supermarket. We all have strep somewhere on us. There are so many strands of streptococcus, only a few of them make us sick. She may be thinking staph, well see above and replace strep with staph. These buggers are EVERYWHERE, and some strands are even considered normal flora for us humans.

As Far as your second question: "Most" worms from animals do not infect humans. Those that do can be prevented by good handwashing and thoroughly cooking meat and fish. For the most part (esp in the US), it's the worm eggs that that find their way into a host to cause infection.

Here is a link to Zoonoses' (animal to human diseases) associated with Poultry.
http://www.iacuc.wsu.edu/documents/forms/pdf/Zoonoses_poultry.pdf
I would venture to say as long as your flock is healthy and happy there is not much to worry about.

Best of luck with Mom

~Stephanie