Management of a Salmonella outbreak on a dairy farm

Abstract

A 200 cow dairy in Northeast Ohio experienced an outbreak of Salmonella typhimurium during the spring of1994. In addition to human health implications, Salmonella outbreaks negatively impact herd health and productivity. As the United States Department of Agriculture institutes changes in the current inspection system to focus on microbial contamination of food, a greater emphasis will be placed on controlling the disease agent on the farm. This challenges both veterinarians and farmers to work as a team to institute management changes that will result in lowering the number of pathogenic organisms associated with foods of animal origin prior to their entry into the food chain. This paper reviews this Salmonella outbreak, offers management suggestions to control the disease agent, and describes how the problem was resolved on this farm.