Urban Chickens As Salmonella Carriers Wash Your Hands!! | Chicken Coops Backyard

Urban Chickens As Salmonella Carriers Wash Your Hands!!


This past weekend, Seattle NPR-affiliate KPLU posted Backyard Chickens: Cute, Trendy Spreaders of Salmonella, an article by Nancy Shute. To save you the read, heres a synopsis of the article: sensationalist headline, some scary statistics from an outbreak of salmonella tied to a particular hatchery, concludes with the common-sensical "the CDC says wash your hands to reduce the risk of spreading the disease."

Theres a lot of simple wisdom in that directive from the CDC: wash your hands. In fact, the CDC directive applies to reducing risk of transferring diseases to humans from any animals. Well, except for the danger cats pose to pregnant women.

Looking back over four years ago, I published on this blog a series of posts exploring some of the more common concerns I see raised in the debate to allow urban chickens:
  • urban chickens and salmonella fears
  • what to do with the poop 
  • the cost to enforce urban chicken laws
  • urban chickens: solving the spread of bird flu
Time to blow the digital dust off those posts as we get into the season renewed urban chicken interest. Whats old is new again.

Flickr Photo credit: Microbe World


Urban Chickens As Salmonella Carriers Wash Your Hands!!