Breeding flocks shall be sampled at the initiative of the food business operator and as part of official controls.
Sampling shall take place every two weeks at the place designated by the competent authority from the following two possible options:
at the hatchery; or
at the holding.
The competent authority may decide to implement one of the options referred to in points (a) or (b) to the whole testing scheme for all broiler breeding flocks and one of those options for all layer breeding flocks. However, sampling of breeding flocks laying hatching eggs intended for the trade within the Union must take place on the holding.
A procedure shall be set up to guarantee that the detection of the presence of the relevant Salmonella serotypes during sampling at the initiative of the food business operator is notified without delay to the competent authority by the laboratory performing the analyses. Timely notification of the detection of the presence of any of the relevant Salmonella serotypes shall remain the responsibility of the food business operator and the laboratory performing the analyses.
By way of derogation from the first paragraph of this point, if the Union target has been achieved for at least two consecutive calendar years in the whole Member State, sampling at the holding may be extended to take place every three weeks, at the discretion of the competent authority. However, the competent authority may decide to keep or revert to a two-week testing interval in the case of detection of the presence of the relevant Salmonella serotypes in a breeding flock on the holding and/or in any other case deemed appropriate by the competent authority.
Sampling as part of official controls shall consist of:
routine sampling every 16 weeks at the hatchery;
routine sampling at the holding on two occasions during the production cycle, the first one being within four weeks following moving to laying phase or laying unit and the second one taking place towards the end of the laying phase, not earlier than eight weeks before the end of the production cycle;
confirmatory sampling at the holding, following the detection of the presence of the relevant Salmonella serotypes from sampling at the hatchery.
within four weeks following moving to laying phase or laying unit;
towards the end of the laying phase, not earlier than eight weeks before the end of the production cycle;
at any time during the production cycle which is sufficiently distant in time from the sampling referred to in points (a) and (b).
at the holding on one occasion at any time during the production cycle and once a year at the hatchery; or
at the holding on two occasions at any times which are sufficiently distant in time from each other during the production cycle.
However, the competent authority may decide to keep or revert to the sampling laid down in point 2.1.2.1 or 2.1.2.2 in the case of detection of the presence of the relevant Salmonella serotypes in a breeding flock on the holding and/or in any other case deemed appropriate by the competent authority.
A sampling carried out by the competent authority may replace a sampling at the initiative of the food business operator.
At least one sample shall be taken per breeding flock on each sampling occasion.
Sampling must be arranged on a hatch day when samples from all breeding flocks are available. If not possible, it has to be guaranteed that samples are collected from every flock at least at the frequency laid down in point 2.1.
All material from all hatchers from which hatched chicks are removed on the sampling day shall contribute to the set of samples in a proportionate way.
If there are more than 50 000 eggs of one breeding flock in the hatchers, a second sample shall be collected from that flock.
The sample shall consist of at least:
one composite sample of visibly soiled hatcher basket liners taken at random from five separate hatcher baskets or locations in the hatcher, to obtain a total sampling surface of at least 1 m2; if the hatching eggs from a breeding flock occupy more than one hatcher, then such a composite sample shall be taken from each hatcher up to a maximum of five; or
one sample taken with one or several moistened fabric swab(s) of at least 900 cm2 surface area in total, taken immediately after the removal of the chickens from the whole surface area of the bottom of at least a total of five hatcher baskets, or from fluff from five places, including on the floor, in each hatcher up to a maximum of five with hatched eggs from the flock, ensuring that at least one sample per flock from which eggs are derived, is taken; or
10 g of broken eggshells taken from a total of 25 separate hatcher baskets, namely 250 g in the initial sample, in up to five hatchers with hatched eggs from the flock, crushed, mixed and sub-sampled to form a 25 g subsample for testing.
The procedure set out in points (a), (b) and (c) shall be followed for sampling at the initiative of the food business operator and as part of official controls. However, it shall not be mandatory to include a hatcher with eggs from different flocks if at least 80 % from the eggs are in other sampled hatchers.
Sampling shall primarily consist of faecal samples and shall aim to detect a 1 % within flock prevalence, with a 95 % confidence limit. To that effect, the samples shall comprise one of the following:
Pooled faeces made up of separate samples of fresh faeces each weighing not less than 1 g taken at random from a number of sites in the poultry house in which the breeding flock is kept, or where the breeding flock has free access to more than one poultry house on a particular holding, from each group of houses on the holding in which the breeding flock is kept. Faeces may be pooled for analysis up to a minimum of two pools.
The number of sites from which separate faeces samples are to be taken in order to make a pooled sample shall be as follows:
| Number of birds kept in the breeding flock | Number of faeces samples to be taken in the breeding flock |
|---|---|
| 250-349 | 200 |
| 350-449 | 220 |
| 450-799 | 250 |
| 800-999 | 260 |
| 1 000 or more | 300 |
Boot swabs and/or dust samples:
Boot swabs used shall be sufficiently absorptive to soak up moisture. Tubegauze ‘socks’ shall also be acceptable for that purpose.
The surface of the boot swab shall be moistened using appropriate diluents (such as 0,8 % sodium chloride, 0,1 % peptone in sterile deionised water, sterile water or any other diluent approved by the competent authority).
The samples shall be taken while walking through the house using a route that produces representative samples for all parts of the poultry house or the respective sector. It shall include littered and slatted areas provided that slats are safe to walk on. All separate pens within a poultry house shall be included in the sampling. On completion of the sampling in the chosen sector, boot swabs must be removed carefully so as not to dislodge adherent material.
The samples shall consist of:
five pairs of boot swabs, representing each about 20 % of the area of the poultry house; the swabs may be pooled for analysis into a minimum of two pools; or
at least one pair of boot swabs representing the whole area of the poultry house and an additional dust sample collected from multiple places throughout the poultry house from surfaces with visible presence of dust; one or several moistened fabric swab(s) of at least 900 cm2 surface area in total must be used to collect the dust sample.
In cage breeding flocks, sampling may consist of naturally mixed faeces from dropping belts, scrapers or deep pits, depending on the type of house. Two samples of at least 150 g shall be collected to be tested individually:
droppings belts beneath each tier of cages which are run regularly and discharged into an auger or conveyor system;
droppings pit system in which deflectors beneath the cages scrape into a deep pit beneath the house;
droppings pit system in a step-cage poultry house when cages are offset and faeces fall directly into the pit.
There are normally several stacks of cages within a house. Pooled faeces from each stack shall be represented in the overall pooled sample. Two pooled samples shall be taken from each breeding flock as described in the following third to sixth subparagraphs.
In systems where there are belts or scrapers, these shall be run on the day of the sampling before sampling is carried out.
In systems where there are deflectors beneath cages and scrapers, pooled faeces that have lodged on the scraper after it has been run, shall be collected.
In step-cage poultry house systems where there is no belt or scraper system it is necessary to collect pooled faeces from throughout the deep pit.
Droppings belt systems: pooled faecal material from the discharge ends of the belts shall be collected.
[F1In cage houses where a sufficient amount of faeces does not accumulate on scrapers or belt cleaners at the discharge end of belts, four or more moistened fabric swabs of at least 900 cm 2 per swab, moistened using appropriate diluents (such as 0,8 % sodium chloride, 0,1 % peptone in sterile deionised water, sterile water or any other diluent approved by the competent authority, shall be used to swab as large a surface area as possible at the discharge end of all accessible belts after they have been run, ensuring each swab is coated on both sides with faecal material from the belts and scrapers or belt cleaners.
In multi-tier barn or free range houses in which most of the faecal material is removed from the house by dropping belts, one pair of boot swabs shall be taken by walking around in littered areas in accordance with point (b) and at least 2 moistened fabric swabs shall be taken as hand-held swabs from all accessible dropping belts, as in point (d).]
Textual Amendments
Routine sampling shall be performed as described in point 2.2.2.1.
Confirmatory sampling following the detection of the relevant Salmonella serotypes from sampling at the hatchery shall be performed as described in point 2.2.2.1.
Additional samples can be collected for the possible testing of antimicrobials or bacterial growth inhibitors as follows: birds shall be taken at random from within each poultry house of birds on the holding, normally up to five birds per house, unless the competent authority deems it necessary to sample a higher number of birds.
If the source of infection is not confirmed, antimicrobial testing shall be carried out or new bacteriological testing for the presence of the relevant Salmonella serotypes shall be carried out on the breeding flock or their progeny before trade restrictions are lifted.
If antimicrobials or bacterial growth inhibitors are detected, the Salmonella infection shall be considered as confirmed.
Suspicion of false results
In exceptional cases where the competent authority has reason to question the results of the testing (such as false positive or false negative results), it may decide to repeat the testing in accordance with point (b).