Salmonellais no jest . In 2007 , before my chicken - keeping days , a booster and I were sickened with salmonella when we use up undercooked wimp at a eating place in Lexington , Ky. Food toxic condition hit each of us 18 hours later , and I ’ve never been so sick in my life .
The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention now admonish that we chicken keepers might becareless with our pile , endangering ourselves for make snuggly pet out of farm animals . I surely do n’t kiss my hens , but I do cuddle them on occasion . Does that put me in danger ? I do n’t think so .
harmonise to the CDC , salmonella makes 1,000,000 people sick each year . Of those , 19,000 mass are hospitalise ( 1.9 percent ) , and 380 dice ( 0.038 percent ) . These are victims of food intoxication from infected undercooked chicken and egg from antibiotic - resistant strains that whiplash through mill farms .
The CDC say 180 hoi polloi have been disgust with salmonella this class because of close contact with their chicken ( 0.018 percentage of entire annual illnesses ) , and 33 of those were hospitalise . What I ’ve note lack in the reports is any information about what food these crybaby keeper might not have cooked properly , or if their chickens test positively charged for the bacteria .
The CDC ’s website has information for the poulet steward that process the backyard volaille a bit like a ticking sentence bomb . It urge that children under the age of 5 not be allow for to handle any chicken duty ; for keepers never to allow chicken in places where food for thought or drinks might be serve , including a terrace ; and to arrogate that all live poultry is infectious .
If you ’re not already hosing off your terrace and washing out-of-door tabletop before eat on , you should start out now . This is common sense , like not kissing birds .
Healthcare Requires Handling
Salmonella does n’t always make chickens demented . As such , the CDC advises that we not nest / handle our hen . But , we can not provide our hens the introductory health care they require and deserve without treat them . What the CDC fails to note is that human race can not be infected with salmonella by contact alone . When we are infect with salmonella , we have to ingest it . You shrink salmonella by rust infected undercooked meat , infect undercooked eggs and microscopic particle of septic feces . Wash your hands after handling your chickens , lest you unknowingly touch your mouth . This is also common sense .
Factory Farm Vs. Your Backyard
mill - produce egg stratum are take intoitty - bitty cagesstacked to the rafters , and kernel birds stand wing - to - wing by the thousands . These environments spread disease very quickly . In the fount of salmonella , it spreads through environmental taint with infected feces . These animals have no chance of receiving case-by-case aid , basic care or even unfermented air . They ’re also fed antibiotics in an attempt to thwart disease , yet salmonella evolves to resist the medicinal drug . Because of their controlled environments , changeless accent and absence of other naturally go on pathogen , their resistant systems are artificially depressed .
Your backyard chickens either roam on fresh grass or have a healthy amount of confined space per bird . They eat insects , they ’re expose to small sum of money of a variety of pathogens on a regular basis , andyou cleanse their home . Your chickens ’ immune system are substantial simply because of your care .
Don’t Be Chicken
Growing one ’s own intellectual nourishment in the filth and raising one ’s own chickens for marrow and/or eggs is the very best way to shrink or egest one ’s pic to unsafe straining of antibiotic - resistant bacteria like salmonella . parent food increases human vulnerability to humble amounts of naturally fall out pathogens that work out and tone our resistant systems , just like our backyard chickens ’ .
Of those sickened each year , the majority of them are consumers of factory - farmed chicken and egg . Being sickened by salmonella from backyard flocks is possible , but you may annul it by washing your mitt and keeping your sass to yourself .
scan more of Chicken Quarters »
