bird to spread Salmonella in the environment, in the flock, and into the food chain.
The Industry’s Biggest Challenge As I have suggested, none of these intervention techniques is a silver bullet that allows a farmer to say with a 100 percent conviction that his birds or eggs are Salmonella-free when they go to market. So obviously one of the industry’s biggest challenges is controlling Salmonella. Vaccination has been somewhat successful in controlling—but not eliminating—the pathogen. With thousands of Salmonella serovars, or distinct variations within a subspecies, it is difficult with current technologies to develop a vaccine that will be effective against all of them. You cannot get complete coverage against every Salmonella serovar present, usually only the major serovars are covered. What this means is that Salmonella, and vaccinations are only effective for six months before another serovar that wasn’t in the vaccine becomes the predominant one found. Poultry companies in general are reluctant to vaccinate against a pathogen like Salmonella that does not make poultry sick. Not only is there no guarantee the vaccine will be effective, but vaccinated birds lose performance. A decrease in performance means the birds do not grow as well
and lack uniformity in size, and it is impossible to overstate the importance of uniformity. Processing goes more smoothly if, for example, all the chicken breasts are the same size. In addition, large-scale buyers like McDonald’s desire uniformity. With 13,000 restaurants in the U.S. and more than 30,000 worldwide, if McDonald’s wants something from suppliers, McDonald’s gets it. That is one of the reasons more poultry is being raised without use of antibiotics—McDonald’s antibiotic-free poultry. That is also part of the reason poultry producers are so very conservative and averse to change. Change is a gamble, unless the change is virtually guaranteed to help. If a poultry company has a contract with McDonald’s or another large customer, that contract requires broilers to be grown to a certain size. If the poultry company changes the feeding program, this could affect the birds’ growth, which may or may not change the specifications. Losing a big contract or market share could potentially bankrupt a poultry company. I know that poultry companies are not the bad guys—they are trying to make a wholesome and affordable food product for consumers. I believe that abuse of antibiotics in human and companionanimal medicine is far more pervasive than in agriculture, but unfortunately, agriculture is an easier target than people or their pets. Poultry companies
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are worried about completely eliminating antibiotics, because the company that stops using antibiotics to help control disease could be the first to fail in a competitive marketplace. The poultry farmers I know work hard, and in general they do their best to provide us with safe food. So you can see why so much of the research I do with my Extension appointment is pragmatic. I take to heart the challenges faced by poultry integrators and farmers.