Lack of evidence for vertical transmission of Campylobacter spp. in chickens

Campylobacter jejuni is a major cause of bacterial food-borne infection in the industrial world. There is evidence that C. jejuni is present in eggs and hatchery fluff, opening the possibility for vertical transmission from hens to progeny. Poultry operations in Iceland provide an excellent opportunity to study this possibility, since breeding flocks are established solely from eggs imported from grandparent flocks in Sweden. This leaves limited opportunity for grandparents and their progeny to share isolates through horizontal transmission. While Campylobacter was not detected in all grandparent flocks, 13 of the 16 egg import lots consisted of eggs gathered from one or more Campylobacter-positive grandparent flocks. No evidence of Campylobacter was found by PCR in any of the 10 relevant quarantine hatchery fluff samples examined, and no Campylobacter was isolated from the parent birds through 8 weeks, while they were still in quarantine rearing facilities. After the birds were moved to less biosecure rearing facilities, Campylobacter was isolated, and 29 alleles were observed among the 224 isolates studied. While three alleles were found in both Sweden and Iceland, in no case was the same allele found both in a particular grandparent flock and in its progeny. We could find no evidence for vertical transmission of Campylobacter to the approximately 60,000 progeny parent breeders that were hatched from eggs coming from Campylobacter-positive grandparent flocks. If vertical transmission is occurring, it is not a significant source for the contamination of chicken flocks with Campylobacter spp.