Sandy wrote:
>Vet calls lab back, we got E Coli from poultry. WHAT THE HELL DID
>YOU SAY?
>I buy the 10# leg quarters from Wal Marts on a weekly basis. Often I
>add ground turkey as well. This time I didn't. I open bag of chicken &
>dump entire contents into an 8 qt crockpot with a liner n it. It at
>NO time does it ever touch a surface. I cook chicken on high for
>24-36 or more hours.The temp in the crockpot is 220.

This info on cross contamination includes the shiga toxin producing
strains of E. coli bacteria. The toxin itself is not alive but can
"survive" much cooking, and if it does so in large enough amounts...

Cross contamination spread it past the usual host, cattle lower GI
tract. Now, this was prepped in a home where it never touched a cutting
board, nor a dirty platter. Cross contamination from ground beef can
happen elsewhere, though, including at the store's or chain's butcher
department or packaging department.

So, while some illnesses not normally found in poultry can be in the
chicken from producers feeding the chickens beef slaughter debris to
artificially get a fast and cheap fattening up of the chickens (a
risky cheat that is also done with some cattle, using fish often but
sometimes other animals -- including sheep in the past though that is
outlawed pretty much everywhere now due to the possible prion jump
which might be the origin of "mad cow"), it is also possible that the
E. coli got on the chicken from cross contamination before you bought
it, Sandy. (Just as E. coli gets on veggies when there is run-off
contaminated with raw fecal waste, usually from cattle too nearby but
sometimes from other animals such as humans. Cross contamination can
happen at many stages of food handling.) Sometimes cheaper is not
safer, too. Chicken and cattle raised on what they naturally eat,
rather than fattened up near the end with animal slaughter waste, have
a lot less chance of harboring problems, and growing and preparation
facilities which have not cut too many corners are less likely to have
cross contamination risks.

Many, many thanks for giving the people at the FML a lesson that can
help save lives, Sandy.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)

[Posted in FML 6785]