Introduction
Caused by the bacterium Arizona hinshawii, renamed Salmonella Arizonae. It affects turkeys, mainly in North America, and is not present in the UK turkey population. Mortality is 10-50% in young birds, older birds are asymptomatic carriers. Transmission is vertical, transovarian, and also horizontal, through faecal contamination of environment, feed etc, from long-term intestinal carriers, rodents, reptiles.
Signs
- Dejection.
- Inappetance.
- Diarrhoea.
- Vent-pasting.
- Nervous signs.
- Paralysis.
- Blindness, cloudiness in eye.
- Huddling near heat.
Post-mortem lesions
- Enlarged mottled liver.
- Unabsorbed yolk sac.
- Congestion of duodenum.
- Cheesy plugs in intestine or caecum.
- Foci in lungs.
- Salpingitis.
- Ophthalmitis.
- Pericarditis.
- Perihepatitis.
Diagnosis
Isolation and identification, methods as per Salmonella spp. Differentiate from salmonellosis, coli-septicaemia.
Treatment
Injection of streptomycin, spectinomycin, or gentamycin at the hatchery is used in some countries. Formerly in-feed medication with nitrofurans was also used.
Prevention
Eradicate from breeder population, fumigation of hatching eggs, good nest and hatchery hygiene, inject eggs or poults with antibiotics, monitor sensitivity.