The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a bizarre request attached to their latest health warning as the agency urges Americans to stop kissing and cuddling with their chickens.
According to CBS New York , the newest alert was active after the CDC reported that more than 1,000 people across 49 states in the U.S. have been infected with salmonella.
The state of New York has climbed to the top of the chart with just shy of 60 people being diagnosed as of August 23.
More than 50 percent of those diagnosed with salmonella have had to spend time in the hospital while two of the confirmed cases ended in death.
“Laboratory evidence indicates that contact with backyard poultry, such as chicks and ducklings, from multiple hatcheries are the likely source of these outbreaks,” the CDC alert explains.
The alert proceeds to give tips for individuals who have backyard poultry.
“Don’t kiss backyard poultry or snuggle them and then touch your face or mouth.”
Those with poultry in their backyards should always sit aside shoes that are only worn outside when tending to the chicken that do not come into the house.
The CDC recommends not allowing children under the age of five or individuals with a weakened immune system to interact with backyard chickens.
Chicken owners are encouraged to properly wash their hands. Immediately applying alcohol-based hand sanitizer can assist in preventing someone from contracting salmonella.
The CDC also urges individuals to avoid allowing their backyard chickens to be able to go inside and roam around in their homes.
While salmonella is a very serious infection and CDC health alerts are something people should always take seriously, the internet is often a place where people struggle to do so. In fact, Twitter had an exceptionally difficult time processing the request not to kiss and cuddle with chickens.
Jokes and questions have been steadily pouring in as some struggle to understand why this warning needed to be issued in the first place.
“Why are you kissing chickens?”
“Is this a thing?”
“How about dinner and a movie?”
One Twitter user wanted to know if kissing and cuddling chickens was a common occurrence.
Another Twitter user noted that this was not a new alert. The individual shared a screenshot of a piece from four years ago featuring a similar alert.
Some even jokingly questioned if “a little peck” was acceptable in response to the alert.
A few Twitter users wanted to know if they were free to kiss their chicken after they cooked the bird.
In defensive of chickens, some chicken owners admitted they were not willing to neglect their pet chickens, stating that chickens deserve love too.
“I love my chickens. They slobber less than dogs, are slightly less judgmental than cats. And they often provide the eggs for making brownies. They deserve snuggles, but…I don’t wanna get sick. To show my appreciation, I hand-feed them dried mealworms. Everyone wins,” a chicken lover penned in response to the alert.
Responding to the tweet above, some insisted that kissing and cuddling dogs wasn’t much better then chickens.
This warning comes just a few weeks after the CDC issued a separate health alert regarding swimming pools. As The Inquisitr previously reported, cryptosporidium (crypto) is lurking in public swimming pools and is extremely resistant to chlorine.
The best way to avoid the parasite is to avoid consuming any pool water, to exit immediately when a child has an accident and to take a hot shower after exiting the pool.