Chicken Feed Tied to Egg Recall

Following inspections at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, FDA investigators found Salmonella in chicken feed used at both farms.

"This finding of matching the DNA footprint in feed indicates that Wright County Farms and Hillandale Farms are likely sources of the contaminated eggs and that feed and feed ingredients perhaps were the sources but maybe not the only sources," said Sherri McGarry, emergency coordinator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, during a media briefing.

Chicken feed undergoes heat treatment to kill bacteria, including Salmonella, so FDA officials are not yet declaring this as the definitive source of the outbreak, as the feed could have become contaminated from a number of sources after processing and after arriving at the farms.  

At Wright County Egg, ingredients used in the feed, as well as walkways and manure, also tested positive for Salmonella.