Evaluation and Use of BAM/FDA and Rapid Methods for On-Farm Survey

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While BAM methods have been examined extensively with food products, studies to determine the applicability of these methods for use with heavily contaminated farm samples are limited. This objective will be accomplished by inoculating feeds and other farm environmental samples with known populations of these four human pathogens and determining recovery using BAM methods and several commercially available microbiological tests. </p>
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The second objective of this research is to conduct surveys of dairy cattle, swine, and poultry production environments to establish baseline data relative to occurrence of E. coli O157:H7, Y. enterocolitica, Salmonella spp., and C. jejuni. </P>
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The survey will include multiple sites on the bodies of cows, pigs, and chickens, animal feeds, feces, bedding materials, and other environmental sites that could serve as reservoirs for these bacteria. </p>
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Objective 2 will incorporate isolation methods determined from objective 1 studies to provide optimal isolation of test pathogens from the various environments. </p>
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This information is needed to develop management strategies to reduce colonization of farm animals with human foodborne pathogens. On-farm pathogen reduction is integral to safe production of human foods of animal origin because it is on the farm that animals used for human food typically come in contact with human foodborne pathogens.</p>