Study compares Salmonella rates in backyard, commercial poultry farm samples
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In a comparison of differently sized poultry farms, researchers at North Carolina State University found that rates of Salmonella in fecal and environmental samples were more prevalent on larger commercial farms than on smaller backyard farms.
Perhaps more importantly, multidrug resistance was found in Salmonella samples from both types of production systems, even though antibiotics are not used on backyard farms and are only used sparingly on commercial farms.
"We wanted to look at backyard broiler farms; broilers are chickens that are raised for meat consumption rather than egg consumption," said Jessica Parzygnat, an NC State Ph.D. graduate and first author of a paper describing the research. The paper appears in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease.
"Broiler chickens are the top consumed meat in the U.S. and the world, but there's not much research on backyard farms, which are growing in popularity in the U.S.
