Campylobacter

[ChickenSheila]

Hi, I've been quite ill recently & after samples have been diagnosed with Campylobacter & Norovirus, The Norovirus was expected as I work in health & most patients I see have recently been discharged from hospital & most people who work in health are low level carriers! I have now been symptomatic for 2 months. After consultations with Public Health, Infection Control & Occupational Health they have now agreed that my chickens are the culprits & rather than anything being significantly wrong with me they think I keep re- infecting myself when with my chickens! They all had lots of good advice for me but no idea about the chickens. What I need to know is can I get them tested & if so is there a treatment. I've put off going to my local vet as he will openly admit he knows very little about poultry. I've also never washed my eggs but Public Health lady said I must! Now even a bit worried about eating my eggs! Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

[rick]

Hi Chickensheila. I don't know about campylobacter but it goes without saying that washing hands after picking them up and generally being in the coop is a very good idea. BHWT are currently using a picture of a girl kissing her chicken in their publicity and every time I see it I think 'Nooo don't do it!'
But with normal care it doesn't seem to be a problem.
You defiantly shouldn't wash eggs unless you are going to refrigerate them and use then very soon after. The chicken puts a quick drying protective coat on the egg (the coat that makes eggs brown in fact) and it protects the insides (potentially the developing chick but also us) from infection.
Even a dirty egg is dry, start washing them and not only is the egg compromised but you've splashed dirty water around! And if you cook your eggs and wash your hands....
I'm not saying the chickens are not the source, I've been looking at chicken poo through a microscope a lot lately and its absolutely hopping with bugs. But there must be some reason why you've had particular problems.
Others may have more experience and insight into specific tummy bugs from chickens.

P.s. White eggs have a clear coating but it is there. It's actually against regulations to wash eggs for sale in the UK because it massively reduces their shelf life. In the US, I've heard, all eggs for sale must be washed but they have a refrigerated use by date of only 3 days - a bit silly I think when an unwashed egg is good at room temp for a week at least if not more.

 

[chrismahon]

When our chickens were blood tested for export it was for Salmonella. The sampling was done by a Commercial poultry vet practice and then sent away for analysis. But I don't think it is worth testing for Campylobactor because they probably have it -it is common in the digestive systems of poultry and can find it's way onto raw meat during poultry processing. So it is likely that any contact with chicken poo and hence chickens will get it onto your hands and the only thing I can suggest is washing your hands very thoroughly immediately after handling them. As Rick says, washing your eggs is a bad idea. Any contamination of the egg will be killed during cooking anyway.

 

[dinosaw]

They are working on a Campylobacter vaccine for both chickens and humans but the human one is at the trial stage after being successful on monkeys and the chicken one is proving extremely difficult to produce, due to the bacterias ability to mutate in chickens.

 

[dinosaw]

Just had a bit more of a think about this, do you have someone else who can look after your chickens for a month or so?, take a break from spending any time with them, don't eat the eggs either and see if you get better, if you do then it is a fair bet that your chickens are the cause and if not then they have probably just ended up being blamed because the professionals have run out of other obvious causes.

 

[Marigold]

Good idea there from Dinosaw, - or, dare I suggest it, something a bit more radical - rehome the chickens off the premises altogether, clear out the run and all bedding etc, disinfect the coop and everything very thoroughly, (perhaps you could get help with this) and then wait and see what difference it made, if any.
After all, lots of people find out they're allergic or otherwise susceptible to particular species, and because their health is an issue, just have to avoid contact, however much they like them. I'm allergic to cats and guinea pigs, but fortunately seem to be OK with birds, horses and dogs.

 

[Icemaiden]

Hi ChickenSheila.
You have my deepest sympathy; I had campylobacter over ten years ago & haven't forgotten the experience.
As the others have said, if you observe good hygiene when handling your hens & their "produce" , cook the eggs thoroughly and wash your hands with soap immediately after cracking the eggs, I would hope that you won't have a problem. Kissing them is never going to be a good idea...

I've not heard of hens transmitting norovirus to humans before. Is there any evidence for this?

Hope you can soon watch cookery programmes on TV again without having to leave the room...
Icemaiden.

 

[Margaid]

Haven't been on here for a while so have only just seen this.

ChickenSheila you don't say whether you were treated with antibiotics for Campylobacter and it is very antibiotic specific. I got it several years ago, before I kept hens and reckoned that it was from handling the wild bird feeders - probably as a result of rubbing an itchy nose or something before I washed my hands, because it's transmitted mainly through their droppings.

It's the one form of "food poisoning" that you can't starve out of your system because it only takes a couple of microbes to bring on a full blown attack, but transmission from human to human is very difficult. Fortunately so as I had a houseful of paying guests at the time and the Doc told me that had it been anything else she would have had to close me down. A single bout can leave you feeling pretty ill for several weeks if not longer so it may be thatyou are not re-infecting yourself but rather that your system has not been cleared of the Campylobacter.

Wear gloves as much as possible and a dust mask when you clean the hen house so that you don't ingest anything. Hope it clears up soon.

 

[chickenfan]

I understood from a course I did that we are all likely to be exposed to campylobacter from wet-plucked chickens. Wet-plucking is the most common processing system here as it is the cheapest, and if just one bird in the batch has it, all the meat will be infected in the tepid water that is used. I do hope you are recovering by now ChickenSheila.