BACTERIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF POULTRY FEEDS AND THE ANTIBIOTICS SENSITIVITY PROFILE OF THE ISOLATES

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The term ‘poultry’ used in agriculture generally refers to all domesticated birds kept for egg laying or meat production. Poultry comes from the French word poul, which was derived from Latin word Pullus meaning small animals. Poultry is the second most widely eaten meat in the world, accounting for about 38% of the world meat (Raloff, 2003).

The diseases of poultry is like the disease of other animals. They may be caused by pathogenic

organisms, nutritional deficiency and from wound or cannibalism. Some of the diseases associated with fowls locally include; newcastle disease, chronic respiratory disease, fowl typhoid and fowl pox diseases. Livestock (poultry) get infected when pathogenic organism passes to the susceptible animal through feeding (Barnes et al., 2003).

To prevent pathogenic organisms from getting into the body of poultry, attention should be given to the factors that influence their infectious spread. First and foremost, they should have disease spreading stock, clean range, proper feeding and quarantining new stock. Sanitation is very important in poultry management by cleaning of their water can, feeding troughs and finally disinfecting the to help reduce organic matter.

Poultry feeds are infected during processing, by handling, mixing of ingredients and exposing the raw materials and finished products to the atmospheric microorganism. Therefore, high rate

of poultry disease and death occur as a result of consumption of contaminated feed and unpurified water.

Bacterial organisms affect the essential requirements of the body, such as water, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and protein, thereby reducing the content of nutrients needed for the food to be palatable and easily digestible.

 Poultry feed is derived from grains such as maize, barley, wheat, soybean, peanuts, bone meal and offal (Rosa et al. 2005; Davis and Wales, 2010). Poultry feed ingredients of both plant and animal origin are often contaminated with microorganisms, mostly bacteria and fungi and or insects which are of various types depending on the composition of the feedstuff material, its origin, climatic conditions encountered during harvesting, processing, storage, transport technologies employed and packaging materials (D’ Mello, 2006).

Animal feeds are usually not subjected to the same stringent microbiological criteria and standards as the food consumed by humans. The use of poor quality ingredients has led to the production of poor quality feeds. The goal of the feed manufacturer is to supply the animals with feeds whose nutrients can be used by the animal when made available in a suitable form to its cells, organs and tissues. In performing this, the feed manufacturer is expected to be guided by the principles of least cost production of the livestock feeds, and the production of quality products per unit of feed consumed at the least possible cost. Feed manufacture is a regulated business in the livestock industry to ensure the nutritional well being of the different livestock species, without which they will be out of business (Atteh, 2002).

Chick mash is commonly fed to day old birds up to when they are 4 weeks old, while growers mash is fed to growing animals with a well stabilized enzyme profile. Poultry feed has been reported to deteriorate if stored for more than 4 weeks from the time of mixing. This is because there is usually a decrease in feed quality with storage time. Animal feed may serve as carriers for a wide variety of microorganisms. There are numerous ways contaminating microbes can affect feed quality negatively including reducing dry matter, causing musty or sour odours, causing caking of the feed and producing toxins (Maciorowski et al., 2007). Water seepage in any form predisposes animal feed to mold, and mold contamination can decrease nutritional value of feeds and affect animal health especially in the tropics where temperature and relative humidity are high. It is therefore necessary to control the microbiological quality of animal feedstuffs (Arotupin et al. 2007; Maciorowksi et al., 2007).

The presence of moulds and mycotoxins in poultry feeds are usually from the raw materials used in their production. Mould and mycotoxin contamination of the raw materials can occur pre-harvest in field produced fungi and post-harvest in store produced fungi (Krnjaja et al., 2008; Davies and Wales, 2010). Feeds may be contaminated by pathogens at any point in the production, storage, preparation processes. Pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli have been reported to be transmitted by the feed to susceptible consumers, where they grow and cause diseases, or a food borne infection (Church and Dupont, 1993).  Salmonella spp. is the major hazard for microbial contamination of animal feed. Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli O157:H7 and Clostridium spp. are other hazards of less importance (Anon, 2008). A number of other pathogens have also been isolated from poultry feeds such as Fusarium moniliforme, Aflatoxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus, A. glaucus group, Salmonella senftenberg, S. montevideo, S. cerro, Bacillus cereus, Aerobacter aerogenes among others (Jay et al., 2005; Arotupin et al., 2007).

Quality livestock feed is necessary for the maintenance of physiological functions and animal defense systems against diseases and parasites. Traditionally, feed quality has been specified on basis of the nutritional value of every individual feed component (Fink-Gremmels, 2004). Livestock feed quality may however be affected by various microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi growing in different parts of the world.

Most fungal contaminants in stored feed materials usually arise from infestations that began in the field, although some can directly infest storage grains as well when conditions are right (Vieira, 2003; Mabbett, 2003). Moulds require about 12% moisture, more than 7^OC, oxygen and energy for their growth. Fungal growth causes direct losses in volume and quality of feed raw materials and subsequently feed made from them leaving behind some poisonous mycotoxin, which contaminate feed raw materials and finished feeds (Okoli et al., 2006). Feed spoilage by fungi also results in heating and dustiness.

The three most important genera of toxigenic fungi in the tropics are Aspergillus, Fusarium and Penicillium (Kpodo and Bankole, 2005). In Nigeria, much of the studies carried out on moulds focused on the agronomic dimensions of the problem (Kpodo and Bankole, 2005; Fandohan et al., 2005; Atanda and Akpan, 2005). Various animal feed raw materials are however derived from the same sources as human food, thus any fungal problem in an environment would equally manifest in the health of animals (Fink-Gremmels, 2005) and may serve as early warning sign of an impending outbreak in human populations (Nyamongo and Okioma, 2005).

Mould contamination is wide spread in tropical countries where poultry production and processing are expanding rapidly (Delgado et al., 1998; Mabbett, 2004). Poultry are highly susceptible to mycotoxicoses caused by aflatoxins, trichothecenes, ochratoxins and some fusariotoxins (Mabbett, 2004, Opara and Okoli, 2005).

Numerous grain and root tuber based raw materials are used in compounding poultry feeds. Usually one or more of these may be infested with mycotoxigenic fungi. It is therefore necessary to understand the fungal population of these different materials since they are usually sourced from wide geographical areas and may therefore harbor diverse microbial populations (Okoli et al., 2005; Okoli et al., 2006).

Although much work has been done on fungal contamination of animal feeds in the temperate region, and the application of anti-oxidants and mould inhibitors have become routine for feed manufacturers, there products are rarely used in developing countries like Nigeria (Van den Berghe et al., 1990; Okoli, 2005). There is an urgent need to understand the impact of fungi and their mycotoxin products on animal production in Nigeria. Strategies for reduction of mycotoxin contamination in animal production in Nigeria should however be based on a clear understanding of the fungal organisms involved and the type of toxins they produce (Okoli, 2005; Opara and Okoli, 2005).

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study is to assess the bacteriological quality of poultry feed sold in umuahia, Abia State.

The Objectives are:

1.To identify and characterize bacteria isolated from poultry feed.

2 To know the antibiotics which the bacteria are sensitive to.

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