ABORTION IN FOXHOUNDS AND A EWE FLOCK ASSOCIATED WITH SALMONELLA-MONTEVIDEO INFECTION

Salmonella montevideo is a recognised cause of ovine abortion and can cause disease in other domestic animals and humans. The organism was i solated from the aborted fetuses of a bitch from a pack of foxhounds. The subsequent collection of rectal swabs from the foxhounds at approx imately two week intervals over a 48-day period resulted in the isolat ion of S montevideo from 50 of the 61 hounds in the pack on one or mor e occasions. Some of the hounds had gained access to an open pit conta ining dead ewes and aborted fetuses on a farm where the housed ewe flo ck was experiencing S montevideo infection, The S montevideo isolates from both the ovine and canine samples had a plasmid of 120 kilobases with an identical restriction endonuclease fragmentation pattern. The only other isolate from a contemporary outbreak lacked this plasmid, I t was concluded that this case offered further evidence of the potenti al for salmonella infection to be spread by the scavenging of carcasse s.