Breeders of greyhound dogs traditionally feed racing animals and nursing bitches raw meat, and that meat generally is obtained
frozen from commercial renderers. Previous studies have shown that the rendered meat is frequently contaminated with enteric
bacteria, including
Salmonella spp., and that during thawing the rendered meat is exposed to filth flies common in dog kennels. Nursing greyhound pups tend
to experience a high morbidity and mortality from intestinal infections, and we attempted to determine in this study whether
enterics could be spread to pups through contaminated flies. At intervals during 1995 and 1996, flies were trapped or were
net-collected from 10 dog breeding kennels in the region around Abilene, KS. Trapped flies were identified and counted to
determine population numbers, and netted flies were cultured in tetrathionate broth and streaked to medium selecting for
Salmonella sp. and other lactose-negative Gram (−) bacteria. The relative numbers of different fly species varied with the sampling
method, but traps and sweep nets produced similar proportions of the different fly species. Blow flies were twice as likely
to be contaminated with enteric bacteria as any other fly. The most common enteric bacteria found were
Proteus spp., followed by
Providencia spp.,
Pseudomonas spp., and
Salmonella spp. The incidence of
Salmonella and
Proteus spp. seemed to correlate more with accessibility of flies to dog excrement than to rendered meat. The apparent high incidence
of enteric contamination of filth flies clearly implicates them as vectors of enteric diseases in kennels.
Received: 7 July 1997 / Accepted: 26 August 1997