Monitoring of the isolation of pathogens of bacterial infections of poultry

Abstract

In modern commercial poultry farming, the main problem remains the fight against infectious diseases, which cause significant economic losses due to reduced productivity and costs of eradication measures. Broilers are particularly vulnerable to bacterial diseases due to their intensive growth rate and high productivity. The article is devoted to the definition and analysis of the spread of bacterial infections in poultry farms in the northeastern part of Ukraine. The main attention is paid to determining the etiological factors of infectious diseases in broiler chickens of different age groups. It was established that bacterial pathogens were isolated mainly in associations and were represented by microorganisms of the Enterobacteriacea. Most often isolated pathogens Salmonella spp., E. coli, Proteus spp. and other opportunistic microorganisms. The study carried out a microbiological analysis of 385 samples of pathological material taken from broilers of different age periods (1–7, 10–30 and 30–42 days). The results revealed a significant role of Salmonella spp. as an etiological factor of diseases in early age period, E. coli in middle age groups and Proteus spp. with Pseudomonas spp. in the older age group. Salmonella spp., E. coli and Proteus spp. were most often isolated in 89.7% of the investigated samples of biomaterial from chickens 1–7 days, the association of bacterial isolates of Salmonella spp., P. mirabilis represented the largest part – 36.9%. From samples of biomaterial from broiler chickens 10–30 days, isolates of E. coli and Salmonella spp. make up the dominant share – 41.8%, E. coli and Staphylococcus spp. – 22.1%, Salmonella spp. and C. perfringens – 14.9%, E. coli and Enterococcus spp. – 10.2%, Pseudomonas spp. and Staphylococcus spp. – 6.3%, Bacillus spp., Proteus spp. – 4.7%. Campylobacter spp., Proteus spp., Pseudomonas spp., Clostridium spp. were the largest share of isolates from the examined samples of chicken carcasses 30–42 days – 25.8%, which indicates their predominant role in the development of primary and secondary infections in poultry and the potential risks of spreading foodborne toxic infections in humans when consuming insufficiently thermally processed poultry meat. Studies confirm the influence of the microbiological background on the development of primary and secondary infections associated with the conditions of housing, feeding and biosecurity in farms.