Serological monitoring of 40 Swiss fancy breed poultry flocks.

Rapid serum agglutination, haemagglutination inhibition and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were used to screen Swiss fancy breed chicken flocks for antibodies against 12 avian infectious agents. For this purpose, 1,002 blood samples from 40 flocks were collected and tested. Ten percent of the samples were positive for Salmonella gallinarum-pullorum and 62.5% of the flocks were affected. More than 75% of the flocks had antibodies against Mycoplasma gallisepticum/Mycoplasma synoviae, infectious bronchitis, infectious bursal disease, avian encephalomyelitis, infectious chicken anaemia and reoviral arthritis. Low prevalence of antibodies was recorded for Salmonella enteritidis, avian influenza, avian leukosis and Newcastle disease (2.0 to 4.0%).