﻿ Notes from the Field: Campylobacter jejuni Infections Associated with Sheep Castration — Wyoming, 2011
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Both patients provided stool specimens for laboratory testing; C. jejuni was isolated from each. The pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns of the isolates were indistinguishable when restricted separately by two enzymes, SmaI and KpnI. This PFGE pattern had never been reported among 667 specimens from which C. jejuni was isolated in Wyoming and is rare in CDC's PulseNet* database, with a frequency of 0.09% (8 of 8,817). The low frequency of this PFGE pattern suggests that both patients were infected from a common source.

Animals at the ranch included sheep, cattle, horses, cats, and dogs; none were ill during the site visit on October 19 when investigators obtained fecal samples from five lambs. C. jejuni was isolated from two lambs; one isolate had a PFGE pattern indistinguishable from the two human isolates. C. jejuni is transmitted via the fecal-oral route; this is the first reported association of C. jejuni infection with exposure during castration of lambs (2). The PFGE pattern identified in these cases had not been associated with animal exposure. Ranch owners and employees were advised to use standardized, age-specific techniques for lamb castration (e.g., Burdizzo, rubber rings, or surgery) and to wash their hands thoroughly after contact with animals (3).

Reported by

Clay Van Houten, MS, Karl Musgrave, DVM, Kelly Weidenbach, MPH, Tracy Murphy, MD, Wanda Manley, MS, Wyoming Dept of Health. Aimee Geissler, PhD, Kerry R. Pride, DVM, EIS officers, CDC. Corresponding contributor: Kerry R. Pride, kerry.pride@wyo.gov, 307-777-8259.


  1. Wilson DJ, Gabriel E, Leatherbarrow AJH, et al. Tracing the source of campylobacteriosis. PloS Genet 2008;4(9):e1000203.
  2. Man SM. The clinical importance of emerging Campylobacter species. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 2011;191:1–17.
  3. Melches S, Mellema SC, Doherr MG, Wechsler B, Steiner A. Castration of lambs: a welfare comparison of different castration techniques in lambs over 10 weeks of age. Vet J 2007;173:554–63.

* Additional information at http://www.cdc.gov/pulsenet.





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