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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Food and Feed Safety Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #137474

Title: ADMINISTRATION OF CHLORATE PREPARATIONS IN THE FEED OR WATER TO REDUCE SALMONELLA IN PIGS

Author
item Anderson, Robin
item Callaway, Todd
item Genovese, Kenneth - Ken
item Jung, Yong Soo
item Edrington, Thomas
item Bischoff, Kenneth
item Poole, Toni
item Harvey, Roger
item Nisbet, David

Submitted to: Proceedings of Allen D Leman Swine Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/16/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Chlorate is known to exhibit a selective toxicity against nitrate respiring bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella. Only recently, however, have chlorate salt preparations been investigated as potential preharvest food safety supplements. Presently, we report results from experiments investigating the effects of administering experimental chlorate preparations (ECP) to pigs via drinking water or feed supplementation on the incidence of Salmonella. In two separate experiments, weaned pigs were experimentally challenged with Salmonella typhimurium. Twenty four hours later, the pigs were allowed ad libitum access to drinking water containing 2500 mg/l chlorate equivalents or to feed supplemented with 800 mg/kg chlorate equivalents. The pigs were humanely euthanized approximately 24 h after being allowed access to the respective treatments and gut and ileocolic lymph specimens (1 to 2 g) collected at necropsy were cultured qualitatively for the challenge Salmonella strain. Significant reductions (P<0.05) in gut prevalence of the challenge Salmonella strain were observed following drinking water administration of ECP. While proportions of pigs yielding Salmonella-positive ileocolic lymph tissues were significantly reduced (P<0.05) following feed administration of ECP, recovery of Salmonella from cecal and rectal contents from these pigs was too low to measure differences. No adverse effect of ECP on water or feed consumption was observed. These results demonstrate that both drinking water or feed administration of ECP reduced the prevalence of Salmonella positive pigs presented at slaughter and support the concept that ECP may be a useful tool to reduce the risk of carcass contamination during processing.