CLARION - Last week federal authorities announced they had found samples of salmonella matching the strain of the recent outbreak in the feed and barns of Wright County Egg operated by the DeCoster family.
The recall of more than half a billion eggs has sickened more than a 1,000 people across the U.S.
What happened, one may ask?
While the operation of the DeCoster poultry houses, like similar operations in the state, are largely self-regulated, it seems a rule that languished for years on Capital Hill under the Bush Administration - according to Howard Magwire with the national group United Egg Producers - would have required all poultry operations to adhere to precautions preventing tainted eggs from going to market. The egg rule was implemented July 9.
"They're common sense rules," Magwire said. "A lot of egg producers already follow these rules, they just weren't formally put in place."
The new egg rules that went into effect involve a number of procedures, according to Darrell Trample, a poultry veterinarian at Iowa State University.
Among them are:
People must buy pullets, also known as a young hen, from pullet growers who have been monitoring birds from salmonella enteritidis, which was not necessarily a common practice before, Trample said, although "a lot" of companies did conduct their own tests, Magwire added.
Procedures to prevent contaminated equipment and people from bringing salmonella enteritidis into houses must be in place.
Rodent measures to prevent infestation must be undertaken.
Poultry house cleaning is required.
Eggs now must be refrigerated from the time they are picked up in the house until they leave the grocery store. Prior to this there was no requirement to refrigerate eggs during transport.
Perhaps most importantly is a new salmonella enteritidis culture swab.
Trample said manure culture swabs are to be conducted at various locations in the house to determine if salmonella is present in the poultry house, as well. The swabs are then tested at a lab.
"These new rules allow us to determine if salmonella is present or not," Trample said. "Prior to this we had no way of knowing if the hens were infected."
The reason farmers wouldn't be aware that their chickens were harboring the bacteria is that, unlike cattle or hogs, chickens show no symptoms, Trample said.
"So there's no way of knowing if salmonella is in- house," Trample added. "The new culturing requirement will let us know where it is."
Subsequent to finding salmonella in manure, producers must then take 1,000 eggs from the houses on four different occasions two weeks apart, Trample said.
If the eggs test positive, then they will be diverted to a pasteurization process which uses a combination of temperature and time to kill the bacteria.
This is the first rule that will require testing for the salmonella enteritidis bacteria in the poultry houses. Few federal officials enter the animal houses to inspect operations unless a problem arises, such as a massive recall.
Large poultry producers like DeCoster are largely self-regulated, said Gene Tinker the animal feeding operations manager of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
He added that self-regulation works more often than not in the industry because it's in the farmers' "best interest" that their animals stay healthy, which includes maintaining a clean living environment complete with rodent regulation and biosecurity measures.
"Self-regulation works because it affects the bottom line, the farmer's pocket book," Tinker said.
The DNR does ensure that the buildings are built safely and correctly. The department also maintains manure management programs for beef and dairy cattle and hog operations while the Iowa Department of Agriculture monitors the manure management programs on the poultry side.
However, Magwire said U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors are onsite at every licensed egg processing and breaking facility to test the quality of shell and pasteurized eggs.
In light of the Wright County Egg and Hilldale Farm shell egg recall, the FDA will be inspecting all poultry concentrated animal feeding operations this year.
"We need to find out what's going on, and if there happens to be a weakness in the rule, we'll work the FDA to strengthen it," Magwire said. "This new outbreak shows we do need it, and that we were right in supporting it, even if we thought at times the rule may not be necessary."
Contact Lindsey Mutchler at (515) 573-2141 or lindsey@messengernews.net