In Canadian broiler chicken production, removal of litter, washing, and disinfection have typically taken place to prepare barns for new flocks. More recently, new regulations have allowed for water washing between flocks, without disinfection. University of Alberta researchers have found that water wash by itself reduced the numbers of the pathogen, Campylobacter jejuni, in birds and in the barn environment, with no negative effect on birds' growth and health, as compared to those grown in barns that had been fully disinfected. The research is published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.