Microbial Analysis of Poultry Feeds Produced in Songhai Farms, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Ingestion of contaminated poultry feeds are important route of poultry bird’s infection, a total of 50 samples of Quails, Broilers, Layers, and Sussex feeds produced in Songhai farms, Rivers State were analyzed for their bacterial and fungal quality using the culture plate method. The bacteria isolated were Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus spp, Lactobacillus spp, Salmonella spp, the highest percentage of occurrence was obtained with Staphylococcus aureus 35.6%. The fungi isolated were Aspergillus spp, Rhizopus spp, Penicillium spp, Mucor spp. The highest bacteria and fungi count was obtained in Broilers 5.4x105cfu/g and 8.1x105cfu/g respectively while the least count was recorded in Sussex with the range 2.19x105cfu/g (bacteria) and 5.7x105cfu/g (fungi). All the fungi isolated are potentially toxigenic and the fungi count is above the hygienic indicator level, most bacteria isolated are always being implicated in poultry farming disease outbreak. Therefore it is necessary to adopt a microbial quality control measure especially during feed formulation process;