It’s imperative for poultry producers and companies to know what strains of Salmonella serotypes may be circulating in their flocks, said Chuck Hofacre, president of the Southern Poultry Research Group in Georgia.

“As Salmonellas on farms change, different Salmonellas will start to come into our processing plants,” he noted. “If they’re of human-health concern and…show up on the final product, then we’re going to have to change how we monitor and how we test our breeder and broiler flocks.”

Hofacre encourages companies to test their farms to understand which Salmonella serovars are in their broilers and/or breeders. Those serovars that survive all the way to whole-bird carcass rinse or parts rinse are the ones growers should focus on in their live production, he told Poultry Health Today. Monitoring live production provides useful information on what’s getting into the processing plant and whether or not breeder flocks are shedding Salmonella and trickling it down through the broilers in the plant.

“Our monitoring program really needs to focus on sussing out whether it’s a broiler issue or a breeder issue,” Hofacre said.

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