Prevention of Salmonella typhimurium infection inpoultry by pretreatment of chickens and poults with intestinal extracts.

Day-old chickens or turkey poults when pretreated with an oral dose of intestinal fluid froma healthy adult bird, were considerably more resistant to the subsequent establishment of Salmonella typhimurium in their intestinal tract than were non-treated chickens or turkey poults. Caecal fluid was more effective as a pretreatment than were washings taken from other parts of the gastro-intestinal tract of a healthy adult bird. This increased resistance of pretreated chickens or poults is thought to result from the rapid establishment of a conventional indigenous microflora which inhabits establishment and growth by the invading enteric pathogen.