Salmonella: Reducing Pre-harvest Prevalence and Load

US - Reducing the prevalence and/or load of the pathogen in poultry flocks prior to processing helps to control salmonellosis, says Diamond V.
calendar icon 1 October 2014
clock icon 3 minute read

Although it can be found in the environment and many other food sources, Salmonella in poultry remains a significant cause of human illness and death. An important way to help control salmonellosis is to reduce the prevalence and/or load of the pathogen in poultry flocks prior to processing.

A growing body of research has shown that feeding Diamond V Original XPC™ can significantly reduce the pre-harvest prevalence and load of Salmonella in poultry.

Diamond V researchers Drs Don McIntyre and Stephanie Frankenbach wanted to know whether feeding Original XPC throughout an 84-day turkey hen grow-out period would be effective in reducing Salmonella shedding and colonisation in birds challenged with different serovars at two ages (Day 1 and Day 56).

Very young turkeys were inoculated with a serovar associated with early contamination of live birds (Salmonella Typhimurium). Birds in the same group were inoculated when older with a serovar associated with recent human illness outbreaks (S. Heidelberg).

The researchers found that feeding Original XPC to turkey hens from hatch to market age was an effective pre-harvest intervention for Salmonella, significantly reducing numbers of bacteria in the ceca of highly challenged birds.

Also, feeding Original XPC reduced “outlier birds” with high numbers of Salmonella compared to control birds. This result may be particularly important to the processing plant, where outlier birds can overwhelm the chemical controls in place and add risks such as:

  • whole birds or parts with high Salmonella numbers reaching the consumer, and
  • allowing highly infected carcasses to cross-contaminate other product in the plant.

For more on Diamond V poultry research, visit www.diamondv.com.

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