The Government’s War on “Backyard” Farms

by Robert Malone / June 8th, 2024

On the front page of the CDC website is the following headline:

Which then opens into the following:

• Are you ready to give away your chickens?
• Move from the country?
• Wear gloves and a mask when caring for backyard chickens?
• Stop buying eggs from your local farmer
• or, all of the above?

But hold your horses, reading further into the report – here are the numbers:

Out of 330 million people in the USA in 2024, 109 have gotten sick from Salmonella and have some association with backyard poultry this year.

A further dig into the CDC archives reveals that for the past six years, the CDC has conducted successive investigative “reports” on Salmonella outbreaks linked to backyard poultry. In fact, they write numerous articles on the subject each year.

Something fishy is going on here…

A search for poultry and salmonella on the CDC website reveals no such investigations or public reports for commercial poultry operations. There are NO reports for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 or 2019 (the archives stop at 2019).

The CDC estimates that Salmonella bacteria cause about 1 million illnesses, 19,000 hospitalizations, and 380 deaths each year in the U.S

Below are the numbers for salmonella cases linked to backyard poultry, according to the CDC webpages:

An extensive search on the CDC website could not find how many people are sickened by commercial poultry each year.

So I went to various AI services, which spat out answers about risk of transmission and statistics about being sickened backyard poultry. The exact same pablum that I had found on the CDC website.

So, then I went the USDA website, and from there I was able to extrapolate the answer.

Therefore, according to the USDA, 1 million x .23% = 230,000 people are sickened by Salmonella associated with the consumption of chicken and turkey each year.

Out of those 230,000 infected with Salmonella from poultry a year, about a thousand people are sickened from backyard poultry (from the CDC).

THIS MEANS THAT ONE OUT OF EVERY 230 POULTRY-RELATED SALMONELLA CASES IN THE USA IS RELATED TO BACKYARD POULTRY!

One out of 230 salmonella cases, yet the CDC is completely focused on the risk of salmonella associated with backyard poultry in its public messaging and warnings.

You can’t make this stuff up.

But it gets worse; recently, North Carolina State University conducted a study that documented backyard and small farm poultry operations are infected with salmonella at a much lower rate than commercial plants.

So, the CDC’s website has nothing to say about salmonella-related illnesses for the 229,000 people infected from commercial operations, but the website is literally flooded with dire warnings about backyard poultry for the 1067 cases per year infected from backyard flocks.

How could this be anything but intentional?

Of course, the issue of regulatory capture again raises its ugly head.

Who hires someone after they have worked for the CDC? Industry, of course. Does the person who researches the high levels of salmonella in commercial poultry houses get hired?

“As far as making people sick and posing economic threats to the meat and poultry industry, it is at the top, it is the most widespread foodborne pathogen,” said Jonathan Campbell, PhD, extension meat specialist and associate professor of animal science at Pennsylvania State University, in University Park, Pa.

Salmonella is among the most widespread foodborne pathogens in part because there are so many types, referred to as serotypes, said Jasna Kovac, PhD, assistant professor of food safety and food science at Penn State. It also easily moves from animal hosts to people.

“It can survive pretty much everywhere in the environment, but its main harborage is in warm-blooded animals,” she explained.

So, salmonella will always be a risk in our food supply, including salmonella found in plant-based foods. But why has the CDC chosen to go after backyard flocks and small farmers? Of all the health-related news in the United States, why is the minuscule number of people infected from backyard poultry news on their front page year after year after year?

By omitting the true statistics about salmonella infections derived from the commercial poultry sector and highlighting backyard birds, the CDC intentionally misrepresents the danger of salmonella found in commercially produced poultry products. Commercial poultry farming is a big business, so is the CDC protecting that industry by throwing small farmers and homesteaders under the bus?

The government does not like what it can not control or regulate. When we create our own independent food supply networks, this triggers the government.

It is also hard to tax what they can not regulate.

But beyond that, this is a war by our government on personal sovereignty.

Thank you for reading Who is Robert Malone. This post is public so feel free to share it.

On a personal note, we have quite the pea-baby production going on here.

We collect one or two peacock eggs a day, save them up and then place them in the incubator each week. On Sunday, they get put into the brooder area for hatching.

So, far we have three weeks of hatchlings, for a total of 15+/- birds – with eight more due to hatch tomorrow.

Most of the babies will be given away to friends or sold.

(For those that didn’t know it, Jill and I are huge fans of aviculture, and Jill worked at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park as well as the Brookfield Zoo in the 1980s. So for us, having these amazing avian creatures strolling around the farm is a joy. And as to answer the oft-asked question; no – the noise really doesn’t bother us. The exotic sounds of pea and guinea fowl sing to my soul.

Behold, a just-hatched baby pea.

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Robert W Malone MD, MS is president of the Malone Institute whose mission is to bring back integrity to the biological sciences and medicine. The Malone Institute supports and conducts research, education, and informational activities. Contact: info@maloneinstitute.org. Read other articles by Robert, or visit Robert's website.

 

Calcium tests in poultry offer chance for improved feed efficiency

Poultry nutritionists show results in calcium bioavailability, digestibility tests connected

University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

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Ben Parsons, an assistant professor of poultry nutrition with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, and colleagues in the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science compared the results of two calcium availability tests — a classic approach and a newer, speedier test — and found that both tests offer reliable results that can help poultry producers optimize calcium digestibility.

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Credit: U of A System Division of Agriculture photo

By John Lovett

University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — One percentage point of feed conversion loss in large-scale poultry production can cause millions in lost revenue, so even small improvements — like fine-tuning a single nutrient in feed — can make a big difference.

Calcium plays a key role in poultry feed conversion. In addition to bone density, enzyme activation, muscle contraction, and other critical functions, calcium affects the efficiency of turning food into weight gain. But in broilers, it’s not just the amount of calcium that matters. What really counts is bioavailability: how much of that nutrient the bird can actually use.

Accurately measuring calcium bioavailability has been tricky for poultry scientists.

“The biggest challenge we have is analytically picking up the calcium content of our samples accurately,” said Ben Parsons, an assistant professor of poultry nutrition with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. “Our main calcium sources — dicalcium phosphate and limestone — are rocks. You may get a big piece or a little one in the sample, and it causes variability.”

A new study by Parsons and his colleagues in the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science compared the results of two calcium availability tests — a classic approach and a newer, speedier test — and found that both tests offer reliable results that can help poultry producers optimize calcium digestibility.

Arkansas has consistently ranked as the third-largest producer of broiler chickens in the nation, producing more than 7.4 billion pounds of broiler meat in 2023, according to the latest Arkansas Agricultural Profile. Bringing in $6.5 billion, broiler production represents about 45 percent of all agricultural cash farm receipts in Arkansas.

In the quest to formulate optimum-performance poultry feed, poultry nutritionists have been looking at not just how much calcium is in the feed but how much is digested and absorbed by the bird.

Currently, the feed is formulated to meet a total calcium requirement in the diet, which does not account for differences in calcium availability among sources. Even among different sources of the same ingredient, calcium availability can vary due to factors such as solubility and particle size.

Value in the millions

Limestone is the most common calcium source in poultry diets, Parsons said. It’s inexpensive and widely available, but its digestible calcium content can range from as low as 20 percent to nearly 80 percent. To be safe, feed producers often add more than needed — but too much calcium can reduce the availability of other nutrients, such as phosphorus, and may even worsen disease challenges, Parsons explained.

“Some recent work is showing that excess calcium can exacerbate disease and pathogen challenges,” he said. “We don’t understand how right now, but we know that there’s value in trying to get more precise in how we’re meeting the animal’s calcium requirement.”

The value could be worth millions. As Parsons explained, feed conversion ratio is a numerical value that can have a big effect even when it’s a small number due to the high volume of birds being grown by the largest poultry producers.

“If you have a 1-point performance loss, that equates on a yearly basis to around $20 million to $24 million,” Parsons said of large-scale poultry farms. “Small things that impair performance could end up costing a lot of money because that little reduction in performance gets amplified.”

Two ways to measure calcium availability

Parsons and Rebekah Drysdale, Ph.D. poultry science student in Bumpers College at the University of Arkansas, conducted studies showing that a relatively new and speedy method of measuring calcium digestibility in the small intestines reflects results of an older and more time-consuming method of measuring bioavailability using ash or mineral content of a chicken’s leg bone.

Drysdale developed the method to measure calcium bioavailability using bone ash in modern broiler chickens as part of her master’s thesis, Parsons noted.

“The bone ash method is a classic approach that has been around for decades, mainly for trace minerals and phosphorus but very recently we’ve developed a regression approach for bone ash to measure calcium,” Parsons said. “Our goal was to compare it to the new method, and if we could show they are similar, then we could move forward in using these tools to evaluate a lot of different calcium samples.”

The newer method is called the “apparent ileal digestibility test” and involves collecting the partially digested feed known as digesta in the ileum, which is the end of the small intestines. The difference in calcium that was in the feed and what was left after digestion in the dried digesta can then be calculated.

While the apparent ileal digestibility test can be done in 24 to 72 hours with as few as one diet, the bone ash test process takes two weeks before the nutrients are absorbed in the bone and twice as many diets are needed compared with the newer digestibility test.

Results of the study indicate that the newer, more rapid digestibility test can be used to assess calcium availability in feedstuffs. Also, relative calcium bioavailability values based on bone ash content can also be used to predict or estimate calcium digestibility values.

Parsons said while the digestibility test is useful in providing direct measurements of calcium availability, tests for calcium bioavailability based on bone ash can be helpful to confirm results from digestibility tests while also eliminating analytical errors. The calcium bioavailability based on bone ash will also account for absorption, transportation and usage within the body, which offers additional insights beyond absorption or digestibility, Parsons added.

Finding the ‘sweet spot’

Parsons said a long-term goal for poultry nutritionists is to move from total calcium requirements in poultry feed to digestible calcium levels.

“There’s a big challenge in that because you’ve really got to have a good robust data set or database of calcium availability of different sources,” Parsons said.

With varying levels of calcium digestibility in different sources of limestone, Parsons said both methods of testing can help poultry producers screen calcium sources that are causing problems and find sources with a “sweet spot” of digestibility based on solubility rates.

“You want a limestone that’s in the middle of this solubility distribution,” Parsons said. “If you get something that solubilizes rapidly in the GI tract, that’s actually problematic and leads to reduced availability of other nutrients like phosphorus. If you get it solubilizing too slowly, the bird can’t use it.”

Drysdale and Parsons published the results of their experiments in the journal Poultry Science under the title “Comparison of relative calcium bioavailability based on bone ash and apparent ileal Ca digestibility in broiler chickens.”

Seth Hufford, a program technician in the poultry science department, has also been a collaborator on the calcium studies.

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on X at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system. 

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.  

Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.

 

# # #

Broiler chick held by Rebekah Drysdale, a Ph.D. student in the poultry science department for the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas. Drysdale and her adviser, Assistant Professor Ben Parsons, conducted studies that can help poultry producers optimize calcium digestibility. 

Credit

U of A System Division of Agriculture photo

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Journal

Poultry Science

DOI

10.1016/j.psj.2025.105274 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Comparison of relative calcium bioavailability based on bone ash and apparent ileal Ca digestibility in broiler chickens

Article Publication Date

22-Aug-2025

Scapegoating Wild Birds Won’t Solve Avian Flu: We Need Radical Farming Reform

As we reflect on the wonder of migratory birds, and the spotlight focuses on how our cities and communities can be made more bird-friendly, we must also consider how our food system is posing a threat to their very existence.


South Korean health officials inspect a rice field frequented by migrating birds in Seosan, 130 kilometers (78 miles) southwest of Seoul, on November 24, 2006.
(Photo: Jeon Young-Han/AFP via Getty Images)

Peter Stevenson
May 10, 2025

Common Dreams

For migratory and other wild birds, bird flu is a disaster. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, states that 169 million U.S. poultry have been affected by highly pathogenic bird flu since January 2022. Yet worldwide, tens of millions of wild birds have died of bird flu—which has also spread to mammals, including over 1,000 US. dairy herds.

Saturday 10 May is World Migratory Bird Day, a global event for raising awareness of migratory birds and issues related to their conservation. The poultry industry and governments like to blame wild birds for bird flu. However, the Scientific Task Force on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds—which includes the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) stresses that wild birds are in fact the victims of highly pathogenic bird flu; they do not cause it. As a recent study states, “This panzootic did not emerge from nowhere, but rather is the result of 20 years of viral evolution in the ever-expanding global poultry population.”

Until recently, the bird flu viruses that circulate naturally in wild birds were usually of low pathogenicity; they generally caused little harm to the birds. It is when it gets into industrial poultry sheds—often on contaminated clothing, feed, or equipment—that low pathogenic avian influenza can evolve into dangerous highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Governments worldwide appear to have no strategy for how to end these regular bird flu outbreaks other than to hope they will eventually die down.

Industrial poultry production, in which thousands of genetically similar, stressed birds are packed into a shed, gives a virus a constant supply of new hosts; it can move very quickly among the birds, perhaps mutating as it does so. In this situation, highly virulent strains can rapidly emerge. The European Food Safety Authority warns that it is important to guard against certain low pathogenic avian influenza subtypes entering poultry farms “as these subtypes are able to mutate into their highly pathogenic forms once circulating in poultry.”

Once highly pathogenic avian influenza strains have developed in poultry farms, they can then be carried back outside—for example, through the large ventilation fans used in intensive poultry operations—and spread to wild birds. The Scientific Task Force states that since the mid-2000s spillover of highly pathogenic bird flu from poultry to wild birds has occurred “on multiple occasions.”

So, low pathogenic bird flu is spread from wild birds to intensive poultry where it can mutate into highly pathogenic bird flu, which then spills over to wild birds and can even return back to poultry in a growing and continuing vicious circle.

Following its evolution in farmed poultry, the highly pathogenic virus has adapted to wild birds, meaning that it is circulating independently in wild populations, with some outbreaks occurring in remote areas that are distant from any poultry farms.
Is There a Health Risk for Humans?


While the health risk to humans from bird flu may be low, it cannot be ignored. Highly pathogenic avian influenza has spread to mammals including otters, foxes, seals, dolphins, sea lions, dogs, and bears. Worryingly, it has been found in a Spanish mink farm where it then was able to spread from one infected mink to another.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said that cow-to-cow transmission is a factor in the spread of bird flu in dairy herds. The ability for bird flu to move directly from one mammal to another is troubling as a pandemic could ensue if it could move directly from one human to another.

Scientists at Scripps Research reveal that a single mutation in the H5N1 virus that has recently infected U.S. dairy cows could enhance the virus’ ability to attach to human cells, potentially increasing the risk of passing from person to person.

A 2023 joint statement from the World Health Organization, the FAO, and WOAH stated that, while avian influenza viruses normally spread among birds, “the increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections among mammals—which are biologically closer to humans than birds are—raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily.”

Some mammals may also act as mixing vessels, leading to the emergence of new viruses that could be more harmful.
Pigs as Mixing Vessels

Pigs can be infected by avian and human influenza viruses as well as swine influenza viruses. Pigs can act as mixing vessels in which these viruses can reassort (i.e. swap genes) and new viruses that are a mix of pig, bird, and human viruses can emerge. The U.S. CDC explains that if the resulting new virus infects humans and can spread easily from person to person, a flu pandemic can occur.
Need for a Coherent Strategy to End Bird Flu

Governments worldwide appear to have no strategy for how to end these regular bird flu outbreaks other than to hope they will eventually die down. There is no sign of this happening. Without an exit strategy we are likely to face repeated, devastating outbreaks of bird flu for years to come. We need an action plan to restructure the poultry and pig sectors to reduce their capacity for generating highly pathogenic diseases.

We need to:Move to a poultry sector with smaller flocks and lower stocking densities to give the birds more space. Transmission and amplification of bird flu would be much less likely in such conditions.

End the practice of clustering a large number of poultry farms close together in a particular area. Between-farm spread is a major contributor to the transmission of highly pathogenic bird flu.

End the use of birds genetically selected for very fast growth. Such birds have impaired immune systems making them more susceptible to disease.

In light of pigs’ capacity for acting as mixing vessels for human, avian, and swine influenza viruses, the pig sector too needs to be restructured to make it less vulnerable to the transmission and amplification of influenza viruses. As with poultry, this would involve reducing stocking densities, smaller group sizes, and avoiding concentrating large numbers of farms in a particular area.

As we reflect on the wonder of migratory birds, and the spotlight focuses on how our cities and communities can be made more bird-friendly, we must also consider how our food system is posing a threat to their very existence. Failure to rethink industrial farming leaves us vulnerable, with the continued devastation of wild birds and poultry, and perhaps even a human pandemic.

Peter Stevenson is the chief policy adviser of Compassion in World Farming.
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More salmonella infections in Europe: Hygiene rules help prepare poultry safely

Special care when handling raw meat and thorough cooking can prevent illnesses

BFR FEDERAL INSTITUTE FOR RISK ASSESSMENT

Research News 

In recent months, more than three hundred cases of salmonellosis have occurred in various European countries and Canada, which are linked to each other. In the UK the cases could be partly traced back to frozen breaded poultry meat. The cause was contamination with the bacterium Salmonella Enteritidis, which causes gastrointestinal inflammation. Salmonella is not killed by deep freezing and can remain infectious at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the BfR are monitoring the situation together with the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). In Germany, the number of reported cases has currently risen to more than 20 in six federal states. In 2020, there were a total of about 10,000 reported cases of salmonellosis in Germany, most of which were caused by the consumption of contaminated food. In principle, foodborne infections can be avoided by paying particular attention to hygienic care when preparing raw poultry. Due to the measures taken to contain the COVID 19 pandemic, people are currently cooking more often at home and, in the course of this, convenience products such as frozen goods are also being used more frequently. Sometimes it is not obvious at first glance whether such products contain pre-cooked or raw meat. Sufficient heating should always be ensured during preparation, especially of products containing raw poultry meat. In addition, bacterial contamination of other dishes via the raw meat and breading is possible. "Especially for children and elderly people there is a higher risk of getting sick from salmonella," says BfR President Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel.

Link to the FAQs: https://www. bfr. bund. de/en/selected_faqs_on_poultry_meat-54623. html

Investigations by the official food monitoring authorities show that raw poultry and poultry meat products - including frozen products - can be contaminated with pathogens. In 2018, Salmonella was found in 5.6% of chicken meat samples examined and Campylobacter bacteria in every second sample. For this reason, the BfR encourages adherence to its recommendations on the handling and preparation of poultry and poultry products.

It is true that germs such as salmonella and campylobacter are killed during the preparation of poultry meat if the correspondingly high temperatures are reached during cooking. But by transferring these germs to hands, household utensils and kitchen surfaces, other food can become contaminated with these pathogens. If this contaminated food is not reheated before consumption, one can fall ill. Since salmonella can multiply in food at temperatures above 7 °C, there is a particular risk when eating food that is kept unrefrigerated for a long time, such as salads and desserts.

Therefore, the following general hygiene rules should be strictly followed when preparing raw poultry:

- Store and prepare raw poultry products and other foods separately, especially when the latter are not reheated

- Store fresh poultry at a maximum of +4 °C and process and consume until the use-by date.

- Defrost frozen poultry without packaging in the refrigerator (cover and place in a bowl to collect the defrost water).

- Dispose packaging materials carefully and discard defrost water immediately.

- Do not wash poultry, as the splashing water can spread germs; it is better to process it directly or dab it with a paper towel, which should be disposed of directly.

- Utensils and surfaces that have come into contact with raw poultry products or defrost water must be cleaned thoroughly with warm water and washing-up liquid before further use.

- Clean hands thoroughly with warm water and soap between each preparation step.

About the BfR

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientifically independent institution within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in Germany. The BfR advises the Federal Government and the States ('Laender') on questions of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics that areclosely linked to its assessment tasks.

This text version is a translation of the original German text which is the only legally binding version.

 

Bird flu outbreak halts Brazilian poultry exports to the EU

Copyright AP Photo

By Gerardo Fortuna

Published on 19/05/2025 - 

Brazil can no longer issue the required export certificates for poultry meat destined for the EU due to a avian flu outbreak.

Brazil has halted all poultry exports to the EU, the European Commission confirmed on Monday, after the country notified the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) of a bird flu outbreak.

Brazil notified WOAH that it suspended its status ‘free of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)’ after bird flu was detected on a commercial farm in Montenegro, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The notification rendered imports from any region of Brazil of poultry and poultry products ineligible under EU rules that stipulate countries must maintain an HPAI-free status to export poultry products, meaning the EU need not impose a ban on Brazilian poultry.

Without this status, Brazilian authorities are unable to sign the animal health certificates required for exports to the EU.

Although the EU is not Brazil’s largest poultry market (only about 4.4% of Brazilian poultry exports were sent to the EU last year) the Latin American country remains a key poultry supplier to the bloc, accounting for 32% of the EU’s poultry imports in 2024, according to official EU data.

Brazilian outbreakCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

"The European Commission remains in contact with the Brazilian authorities and relies on them to ensure no EU export certificates are being signed," a Commission spokesperson told Euronews.

As part of containment measures, approximately 1.7 million eggs - equivalent to 450 metric tons - have been destroyed in Rio Grande do Sul, according to the state's department of agriculture.

Brazil is the world's largest poultry exporter, supplying to major international markets. China remains its top customer, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.

Health experts are increasingly concerned as bird flu cases continue to rise among wild birds worldwide, particularly in the US, where an outbreak among poultry and dairy cows has resulted in 67 confirmed human cases and one death. 

 

Poultry growers: Have you checked your water lines lately?

Study shows impact water quality can have on biofilm bacterial makeup

University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

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image: 

A broiler chicken sips water from a water line in a poultry growing house. A study by researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station examined the microbial makeup of biofilms in poultry house drinking water lines.

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Credit: U of A System Division of Agriculture photo

By John Lovett

University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Water quality could impact the kind of microbial populations in poultry drinking water lines and lead to the buildup of a biofilm that can harbor pathogenic bacteria like Salmonella, according to a new study.

Biofilm is a thin, slimy layer made up of long-chain carbohydrates, proteins, fats and other substances that serve as a sort of cocoon for microscopic bacteria. These biofilms form regardless of water quality, according to Tomi Obe, an assistant professor of poultry science with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

"If you have good water quality, that doesn’t mean you don’t want to understand what’s in your water lines and in the biofilm,” said Obe, who is also a member of the food science department and the Arkansas Center for Food Safety. "We want to know what's in the biofilm, and how that can contribute to the persistence of pathogenic bacteria."

A recent study by Obe, with lead author Tolulope Ogundipe, DVM, who recently completed a master’s degree from the poultry science department under Obe’s advisement, examined two groups of poultry houses. One group of five houses had historically normal sulfur-iron water and another group of five houses had historically high sulfur-iron water. Between the two groups, the researchers found there were no major differences in the quantity of Salmonella incidence. However, there were differences in the microbial makeup of both the poultry litter on the ground and in the biofilms within the poultry water drinking lines.

The study showed that a Bacillus species with probiotic properties was more prevalent in the biofilms of poultry house water lines with a historically normal sulfur-iron content, and a pathogenic Bacillus species was more prevalent in the biofilm of water lines in the historically high sulfur-iron content group.

Additionally, the one farm showing a low level of Salmonella in the biofilm was also the farm with the highest quantity of Salmonella in the litter. Although that farm was in the historically high sulfur-iron water group, another farm in that group had the lowest quantity of Salmonella in its litter.

“It's hard to say that one group is good compared to the other,” Obe said. “We just observed different microbial populations, and we’re saying the water quality can impact the kind of microbial population that we see in the water line.”

The recently published study is titled “Differences in microbial composition of litter and water line biofilm of broiler farms as influenced by water quality history.” Other co-authors of the study include Samantha Beitia, University of Arkansas Ph.D. student in the poultry science department, and Li Zhang and Xue Zhang, assistant professors of poultry science and animal and dairy sciences, respectively, both with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station at Mississippi State University.

Effective removal of biofilms is “crucial for controlling Salmonella at pre-harvest poultry production,” the study noted.

Pipeline monitoring

Although the microbial load of drinking water is monitored regularly at the source on broiler farms, Obe said not much has been done to assess the inside of drinking water pipelines for the presence and composition of biofilm despite it being a control point for Salmonella.

The study noted that while maximum recommended levels for poultry drinking water are less than 0.3 parts per million for iron and 200 ppm for sulfate, sulfate concentrations of 50 ppm or more in combination with high levels of magnesium and chloride in water could negatively affect bird performance. Water containing high levels of iron and manganese supplied in commercial poultry houses can also serve as nutrients for the survival of some pathogens. This is problematic, the study added, especially for farms in rural areas that use well water and have a history of such water quality issues.

Poultry farmers will often add a water filtration system to help reduce the mineral content; however, routine water line microbial analysis is not a common practice, Obe said.

“We don’t often think of it, but water is a very important nutrient, and routine monitoring of water lines should be important to the poultry industry — not only the quality but the content as well,” Li Zhang said. “We didn’t expect a big difference in quality, but the water source apparently does affect biofilm content.”

Obe and Li Zhang said they are considering the potential for adapting “sight glasses,” or small windows that let viewers see inside pipelines, for visual monitoring and access to swab and analyze microbial content.

The Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station are part of a system of agricultural research centers at 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities across the southern U.S. Our scientists collaborate to conduct research and outreach focused on preserving the region’s natural resources and enhancing food production for a growing global population.

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on X at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system. 

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.  

Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.

 

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Media Contact: John Lovett
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
(479) 763-5929
jlovett@uada.edu

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Journal

Poultry Science

DOI

10.1016/j.psj.2025.105832 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Differences in microbial composition of litter and water line biofilm of broiler farms as influenced by water quality history