Dust effectively infects chickens with Salmonella
A study published in Environmental Microbiology Reports tested the effectiveness of dust infection models to mimic field conditions in chickens. The results showed that dust could act as an effective carrier of Salmonella. Sprinkling 1 g of dust carrying Salmonella Typhimurium was sufficient to colonize the gut and invade the spleen and liver of 21-day-old layer chickens.
The threshold of infection experiment demonstrated that an infection dose of 10^3 CFU/pen was sufficient to alter the structure of microbial communities. It was hypothesized that chickens could be infected with lower levels of Salmonella Typhimurium in the dust compared to the oral route, and that different routes and infection levels might affect gut microbiota differently. These findings support the policy of using dust as a key sample source in environmental monitoring of laying pens in national Salmonella monitoring programs.
