The prevalence of <i>Salmonella enteritidis</i> and other <i>Salmonella</i> spp. among Canadian registered commercial chicken broiler flocks

Abstract

A nation-wide survey was conducted to estimate the prevalence of Salmonella enteritidis and other salmonellas among Canadian commercial broiler flocks. Environmental (litter and/or water) samples from 226 of 294 (76.9%) randomly selected flocks were contaminated with salmonellas. Litter samples were more often contaminated with salmonellas than water samples (47.4 v. 12.3%). Fifty different salmonella serovars were isolated. The most prevalent serovars were S. hadar, S. infantis, and S. schwarzengrund; they were isolated from samples of 98/294 (33.3%), 26/294 (8.8%), and 21/294 (7.1%) flocks, respectively. Feed samples of 39/290 (13.4%) flocks were contaminated with salmonellas. Salmonella enteritidis was isolated from the environmental samples of 9/294 (3.1%) flocks. Salmonella enteritidis phage type (PT) 8 was isolated from seven flocks, and PT 13a from two flocks.