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Abstract. Seven hundred fifty-one environmental samples were collected from 76 chicken layer houses in a voluntary Salmonella enteritidis (SE) survey study carried out in New York state between January 15 and April 8, 1991. SE was recovered from both houses on 1 farm. Sampling of manure pits and mice in hen houses was useful for SE screening. Phage types of SE from the environment, birds, and mice were identical. The rapid whole-blood test was unreliable, and culture of cloaca1 swabs was inadequate for detection of SE carriers. Culture of organs from chickens did not correlate well with results of environmental samples.Although Salmonella enteritidis (SE) infection is actually not a serious disease of chickens, the negative publicity that has resulted from the incrimination of fresh eggs in recent human SE outbreaks' has now made SE 1 of the most important problems confronting the egg industry. The detection of SE in flocks of laying hens has thus become a public health priority and a matter of great concern to egg producers.A variety of diagnostic procedures have been developed for detection of salmonella infections in poultry. Serologic tests for paratyphoid salmonellae have low sensitivity and poor reliability.9,11 Bacteriologic culture of environmental samples has become a popular method for SE survey studies in poultry houses. The recovery of SE from internal tissues is an indication of infection with an invasive strain with a potential of transovarian contamination of eggs.2 Cloaca1 swab culture was selected for inclusion in this study to detect SE in live birds that were needed for research purpose. Although cloaca1 culture has been applied widely under field conditions, its reliability for detecting avian salmonellosis seems limited. 4,5,9 Rats and mice are frequently intestinal carriers of paratyphoid organisms. 5This paper reports findings of a field surveillance study on SE infection in commercial layers in New York state. The results of salmonella isolation from internal organs, cloaca1 swabs, and fecal samples were compared with serologic results using a rapid wholeblood test with S. pullorum antigen. Similar compar-

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Abstract. A commercial gram-negative bacterial autoidentification plate was originally developed using bacterial isolates of human origin. Three veterinary diagnostic laboratories conducted a 2-phase trial to enhance the database for veterinary use. The first phase consisted of testing the plate with 447 bacterial isolates of veterinary origin and incorporating that data into the existing database. Emphasis was placed on the Actinobacillus, Bordetella, Pasteurella and Enterobacteriaceae groups, since the Pseudomonas taxon was quite complete. The second phase of the trial consisted of evaluating the enhanced database using 270 clinical veterinary isolates normally encountered in veterinary laboratories. For the Actinobacillus, Bordetella, Pasteurella and Enterobacteriaceae groups, 72% of the bacterial isolates were identified correctly to genus and 61% to species after 5 hours incubation. Eighty-nine percent of the bacterial isolates were identified correctly to genus and 85% to species after 18 hours incubation. All identifications in phase 1 and phase 2 were confirmed using conventional methods.The bacteria frequently associated with infectious diseases of animals often fall into categories less commonly encountered in humans and, therefore, are not included in the databases of the automated identification systems used in human medicine. A 3-laboratory collaborative effort was made to enhance the database of an automated identification system for veterinary use. Subsequently, the 3 laboratories challenged the autoidentification 5-hour and 18-hour systems using fresh clinical isolates and compared the results with conventional methods. Material and methodsParticipant laboratories. This study was conducted by 3 laboratories representing different geographic regions and therefore different animal populations of the United States. They included the University of Georgia Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (Tifton, GA), the University of Missouri Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (Columbia, MO), and the New York State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). Cornell Diagnostic Laboratory served as the coordinating laboratory. Each trial center used media and reagents consistent with their routine diagnostic testing. A protocol using conventional biochemical methods was defined by the coordinating laboratory to serve as the reference method for identifying test isolates. negative autoidentification system a supplied quality control (QC) organisms on freeze-dried gelatin discs maintained at 2-8 C. They included Escherichia coli ATCC 4157, Klebsiella oxytoca ATCC 8724, Morganella morganii ATCC 25830, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 10145, and Proteus vulgaris ATCC 6896. To prepare the organisms for testing, a disc was aseptically placed onto a blood agar plate (BAP) such as trypticase soy agar containing 5% sheep blood, incubated 5 min at 35-37 C to allow the disc to liquify, and then streaked across the entire plate. The plate was incubated for 18-24 hr at 35-37 C to determine purity and vi...