BELTSVILLE, Md. — While being transported in hauling coops on trucks, poultry that have been colonized with bacteria such as campylobacter can contaminate, through fecal shedding, pathogen-free poultry. Those pathogens can also be passed on to the next group of birds during the next trip, and so forth, unless the cycle is broken.
That’s where Agricultural Research Service microbiologists Mark Berrang and Richard Meinersmann and colleague Charles Hofacre at the University of Georgia in Athens come in. The team has reported a treatment that reduces poultry cross-contamination from transport-cage flooring.
Campylobacter are foodborne pathogens that can be. . .

