This could even be rigged up quite cheaply with a heater and a
blower. It certainly applies to all animal handling situations and
looks to be a simple add on to a wash down. At least it promises to
be cheap to accomplish and manpower would be on hand anyway attending
to other tasks.
At least we know that it is effective enough.
It is also a handy tip for the individual pet owner who can apply a
hair dryer to pet bedding and devices and make it better.
With Hot Air
Treatment, Bacteria Fly the Coop
by Rosalie Marion Bliss for USDA News
Athens TX (SPX) Feb 01, 2013
Forced hot air can
break the cycle of bacterial cross-contamination in poultry,
according to new ARS research. Photo by Stephen Ausmus.
Poultry producers can
reduce bacterial cross-contamination in poultry cages by treating the
cages with forced air that's been heated to 122 degrees Fahrenheit,
according to a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
scientists.
While being
transported in coops on trucks, poultry that have bacteria such as
Campylobacter can contaminate, through their feces, other poultry
that are free of pathogens. Those disease-causing bacteria can then
be passed on to the next group of birds during the next trip, and so
forth, unless the cycle is broken.
Campylobacter is a
food-borne pathogen that can be present in raw or undercooked
poultry. Since the bacteria are commonly found in the digestive
tracts of poultry, they're readily deposited onto coops and trucks
when contaminated animals are transported to processing plants.
In the study,
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologists Mark Berrang and
Richard Meinersmann collaborated with researcher Charles Hofacre of
the University of Georgia at Athens. Berrang and Meinersmann work in
the ARS Bacterial Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Resistance Research
Unit in Athens. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific
research agency, and this research supports the USDA priority of
promoting food safety.
The researchers
tested the use of hot flowing air to speed the process of drying
soiled or washed cages to lower or eliminate detectable Campylobacter
on cage flooring.
When the hot flowing
air was applied to fecally soiled transport cage flooring samples for
15 minutes after a water-spray wash treatment, Campylobacter levels
declined to an undetectable level. Static heat at similar
temperatures was not nearly as effective, and unheated flowing air
was moderately effective, but less so than hot flowing air.
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