Salmonella: test your breeding chickens
Download this document free
Get this document with your free trial. Choose from the full Complyzard library.
Try 1 month free30 days free, then $19/month. Trial terms apply. Card required. Cancel anytime.Document information
When and how to test for salmonella if you breed chickens, and what happens if a flock tests positive. Testing is part of the salmonella national control programme (NCP).
Adapted edition
- Document type
- Reference Guide
- Format
- DOCX
- Pages
- 14
- Language
- English
- Version
- 1.0
- Updated
- 2026-09-17
- Category
- Safety & operations
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0
Description
When and how to test for salmonella if you breed chickens, and what happens if a flock tests positive. Testing is part of the salmonella national control programme (NCP). Consult the original guidance for current legal and operational details.
Contents
- When you must test for salmonella
- Before you test for salmonella
- Register places where you have a hatchery or keep poultry
- Moving breeding chickens to your premises
- Importing hatching eggs or day-old chicks from other countries
- Exporting hatching eggs or chicks
- Ask your vet or a NCP-approved laboratory for advice
- When to collect samples
- Collect samples on the day the chicks hatch or arrive from a hatchery
- Collect samples from birds at 4 weeks old and again 2 weeks before moving them to the breeding unit
- Collect regular samples from your adult breeding flocks
- Avoid collecting samples after giving antibiotics
- How to collect boot swab, faeces, and dust samples
- Prepare to collect samples
- How to collect boot swab samples
- How to collect dust samples
Source and licence
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
AttributionDepartment for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, ‘Salmonella: test your breeding chickens’ (updated 11 November 2025), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
ChangesNeutral text-only adaptation from the official GOV.UK Content API body: headings, paragraphs, ordered and unordered list items and clickable source-link destinations in an appendix preserved. Images, logos, page design, accessible-format request widgets and linked attachments excluded; normalised whitespace, invisible format marks and typography.
Version history
- v1.017/09/2026