ABSTRACTDetection of Salmonella in thaw water, pericloacal skin and whole carcass rinse samples from naturally contaminated broiler chickens was compared. Of 100 birds tested, 70 were found to contain salmonellae by the three sampling techniques combined; the median level of contamination was 0.27 salmonellae/100g eviscerated carcass weight. Recovery with the whole carcass rinse technique (93%) was significantly greater than that obtained with thaw water (63%) and skin (74%) methods; performance of the latter two methods was not statistically different. Thaw water does not provide a reliable index of Salmonella contamination and therefore is not a suitable method for the nondestructive analysis of poultry carcasses. Selective enrichment in tetrathionate brilliant green broth and plating on bismuth sulfite agar identified the greatest number of contaminated carcasses under all sampling conditions.