As of September 24, 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts 1,253 people in 46 states and Puerto Rico infected with seven strains of Salmonella after contact with backyard chicks, chickens, ducklings and ducks; 256 of them were hospitalized and two died, one in Georgia and one in Washington. CDC closed the investigation the same day, with illnesses running from January 20 to August 6. The outbreak strains were traced to eight hatcheries. CDC says it notified them. It did not name them, and there is nothing to recall.
The final update added 192 sick people and 22 hospitalizations in four weeks.
When I wrote about this outbreak on September 7, CDC’s August 27 update stood at 1,061 sick and 234 hospitalized. The closing update moved both numbers again: 1,253 sick and 256 hospitalized, with the hospitalization rate holding at 32 percent of the 812 people whose outcome is known. The two deaths did not change. Neither did the last onset date, which is why CDC could close the file: the illnesses it added were late reports from the summer, not new infections. Here is how the count grew from the first notice in April.
| CDC update | Sick (new) | Hospitalized | Deaths | States | Hatcheries |
| April 23 | 34 (+34) | 13 | 0 | 13 | 5 |
| May 14 | 184 (+150) | 53 | 1 | 31 | 5 |
| June 17 | 513 (+329) | 134 | 1 | 43 | 7 |
| July 27 | 814 (+301) | 201 | 1 | 44 + PR | 7 |
| August 27 | 1,061 (+247) | 234 | 2 | 46 + PR | 7 |
| September 24 (final) | 1,253 (+192) | 256 | 2 | 46 + PR | 8 |
Table 1. CDC’s six updates on the 2026 backyard poultry Salmonella outbreaks, from the investigation page’s update history, read September 25, 2026. The bracketed increments are my arithmetic: 34 + 150 + 329 + 301 + 247 + 192 = 1,253, which matches the final count.
2026 is the second-worst backyard poultry year CDC has recorded.
The table below covers the eight seasons CDC’s outbreak pages still carry. Only 2020, the pandemic year when everyone bought chicks, was worse than 2026. This year passed 2022 by 23 cases and 2019, the year CDC then called the largest on record, by 119. It also more than doubled 2025 and was more than two and a half times 2024. Two years of quiet were not a trend. They were a pause.
| Year | Sick | Hospitalized | Deaths | States |
| 2019 | 1,134 | 219 | 2 | 49 + DC |
| 2020 | 1,722 | 333 | 1 | 50 |
| 2021 | 1,135 | 273 | 2 | 48 + DC + PR |
| 2022 | 1,230 | 225 | 2 | 49 + DC + PR |
| 2023 | 1,072 | 247 | 0 | 48 + PR |
| 2024 | 470 | 125 | 1 | 48 |
| 2025 | 559 | 125 | 2 | 48 |
| 2026 | 1,253 | 256 | 2 | 46 + PR |
| Eight years | 8,575 | 1,803 | 12 |
Table 2. Final CDC counts for multistate backyard poultry Salmonella outbreaks, 2019 through 2026, from each year’s CDC outbreak page (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026), read September 25, 2026. Totals are my arithmetic: the eight case counts sum to 8,575, hospitalizations to 1,803 and deaths to 12. For 2022, CDC’s summary box says 225 hospitalized while the text of its final update says 230; I used the summary box.
More than one in five of the sick were children under five.
CDC puts children under five at 22 percent of this year’s cases, which on 1,253 works out to about 275 small children, and the age range runs from under one to 99. That share is not an accident of who owns chickens. It is who kisses them. CDC’s April 23 announcement said it plainly: children younger than five should not handle chicks or ducklings or anything in the area where the birds live. The May 14 update said it again when the count hit 184 and the first death, in Washington, was reported. The number kept climbing anyway, because the warning lives on a CDC web page and the chicks live in a galvanized tub by the front door of a farm store.
Pekin ducklings drove the largest of the seven outbreaks.
The biggest of the seven serotype outbreaks was Salmonella Saintpaul, and CDC’s closing summary singles it out: sick people in that outbreak “frequently reported contact with ducklings or ducks, specifically Pekin ducks.” Of 247 Saintpaul patients who named a species, 199 reported chicks or chickens and 109 reported ducklings or ducks, and of 43 who knew the breed, 32 said Pekin. Across all seven outbreaks, 582 of 823 people interviewed, 71 percent, reported backyard poultry contact, and 290 of 349 flock owners, 83 percent, had acquired their birds since January 1, most of them at agricultural retail stores. That is a supply chain. It has names on every invoice.
Eight hatcheries were linked, and the public was told none of them.
CDC’s final sentence on traceback is one line: the outbreak strains “were linked to 8 hatcheries,” and “CDC worked with state partners to notify the hatcheries of these links.” In April it was five hatcheries. In June it was seven. On the day the file closed it was eight. At no point in five months did any agency say which ones, which states they ship to, or which retail chains they supply. I wrote about this outbreak in May, when the count was 184 and the first death had just been reported, and in September I asked for four things: name the hatcheries, require Salmonella monitoring of live-bird shipments, put a handwashing station and a barrier between the tub of chicks and the customers, and sample the shipping boxes the way the states already did to make the link. None of that happened before the file closed, and the next chick season starts early in the new year.
Some of these infections may not have responded to the usual antibiotics.
CDC sequenced 1,253 human isolates along with 15 animal, 35 environmental and 3 food samples. Of the human isolates, 419 carried no predicted resistance. The rest did: 670 to fosfomycin, 184 to nalidixic acid, 152 to tetracycline, 53 to streptomycin, 40 to gentamicin, 24 to sulfisoxazole, and smaller numbers to ampicillin, ceftriaxone, ceftiofur, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and cefoxitin. Another 185 were predicted nonsusceptible to ciprofloxacin. CDC’s own words: some infections “might not have been treatable with recommended antibiotics and might have required a different antibiotic choice.” Most people with Salmonella recover without antibiotics. The 256 who were admitted to a hospital are the ones for whom that sentence mattered.
Closing the investigation did not close the problem.
A food outbreak ends with a recall, a lot code and a list of stores. A live-animal outbreak ends with a paragraph telling you to wash your hands, and CDC’s closing line says exactly that: “Any backyard poultry can carry Salmonella germs that can make you sick.” That is true, and it is also the reason the count has topped 1,000 in six of the last eight years. The hatcheries are known to the government. The retailers are known to the hatcheries. The 1,253 people, the 256 hospital admissions and the two families in Georgia and Washington are known only as numbers. Since 1993 I have watched the food side of this problem shrink because someone was finally required to do something. On the live-bird side no one has been, and the eight names would have been a start.
Is the 2026 backyard poultry Salmonella outbreak over?
CDC declared the investigation over on September 24, 2026, at 1,253 sick in 46 states and Puerto Rico, 256 hospitalized and two deaths. The last illness began August 6. CDC says the true number of sick people was likely much higher, because most people with Salmonella are never tested.
Can my chickens or ducks still give me Salmonella?
Yes. Healthy-looking birds carry Salmonella in their droppings and on their feathers, feet and beaks, and it spreads to coops, feed, water dishes and the hands that touch them. Wash your hands right after any contact, keep birds and their supplies out of the house, and keep children under five, adults over 65 and anyone with a weakened immune system from handling them.
What are the symptoms, and when should I see a doctor?
Diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps usually start six hours to six days after exposure and last four to seven days. See a doctor for a fever above 102°F, diarrhea lasting more than three days, bloody stools, vomiting that prevents keeping liquids down, or signs of dehydration, and tell the doctor about the birds. A stool test is the only way to confirm Salmonella and connect an illness to an outbreak.
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