Alternative Routes for Salmonella Intestinal Tract Colonization of Chicks

Abstract

The newly hatched chick may be exposed to significant levels of salmonellae from an assortment of sources such as the hatching cabinet, hatchery environment, and broiler house. Once salmonellae reach the ceca of a young chick, they mat attach to the epithelia and multiple to high numbers in a relatively short period of time. In this situation, the young chick will be excreting large numbers of salmonellae in its cecal droppings, a situation which will result in the contamination of other birds in the broiler house. In this study, salmonellae were introduced into the day-of-hatch chick through an assortment of body openings (mouth, cloaca, eye, nasal passage, and navel) to determine which of the openings would potentially result in the production of seeder birds. The production of seeder birds readily occurred when salmonellae were introduced via the mouth, cloaca, eye, and nasal passage. The data from this study suggest that potential salmonellae seeder birds can develop from contamination of various body openings in the newly hatched baby chick, emphasizing the need to control salmonellae in breeder flocks, hatcheries, and broiler houses.