Your Eggs Should Be Salmonella Free

August 24, 2010   4 Comments

In case you missed it, there has been a massive egg recall due to salmonella poisoning.

228 MILLION eggs are being recalled. Wow! And over 1,200 people have been sick from salmonella poisoning. How did that happen?

The quick answer is that the chickens that produced the eggs were infected with salmonella and passed it on to the egg.

Okay, well that isn't good and might be deadly to people with compromised immune systems if they eat such an egg.

How do we prevent it? Most people are pointing fingers at factory farms where chickens are kept in cages and can't spread their wings.

Last week, I posted this article on eggs - How To Get The Freshest Chicken Eggs and discussed backyard hens.

It seems that salmonella bacteria like wet environments shielded from sunlight. And salmonella is destroyed by the drying effects of wind, by the bactericidal effect of UV irradiation from the sun.

I think it is safe to assume that factory farms are high on wet environments, and low on sunshine and wind. If you know anything about bacteria, you know they love manure, wetness, and warmth.

I can't find a study on salmonella in eggs (factory farms versus backyard hens). It would seem to be a pretty easy study to do. But, I do think you could assume that your backyard hens would have a much less chance of salmonella poisoning than a factory farm eggs if you took good care of them.

Check out this article: Salmonella and what it means for the backyard chicken flock.

What do you think about the latest egg recall?