With Hot Air Treatment, Bacteria Fly the Coop
Poultry processors could use a forced hot-air treatment to dry cages (also known as crates) between transporting flocks, lessening the number of Campylobacter on cage flooring and thereby decreasing the potential for cross-contamination during live haul, according to Rosalie Marion Bliss of the USDA Agricultural Research Service in its magazine, 'Agricultural Research'.While being transported in hauling coops on
trucks, poultry that have been colonized
with bacteria such as Campylobacter can
contaminate, through faecal shedding,
pathogen-free poultry. Those pathogens
can also be passed on to the next group
of birds during the next trip, and so forth,
unless the cycle is broken.
That is where Agricultural Research
Service microbiologists, Mark Berrang
and Richard Meinersmann and colleague,
Charles Hofacre, at the University of
Georgia in Athens come in. The team has
reported a treatment that reduces poultry
cross-contamination from transport-cage
flooring.
Campylobacter are foodborne pathogens
that can be present in raw or undercooked
poultry. Since the bacteria are
commonly found in the digestive tracts of
poultry, they are readily deposited, through
faecal shedding, onto coops and trucks when
contaminated animals are transported to
processing plants.
Berrang and Meinersmann are in ARS's
Bacterial Epidemiology and Antimicrobial
Resistance Research Unit in Athens.
Earlier work has shown that drying
soiled or washed cages for 24 to 48 hours
could lower or eliminate detectable Campylobacter
on cage flooring. But extended
drying times are impractical, so the researchers
tested the use of hot flowing air
to speed the process.
To determine whether the effect was
due to heat alone or flowing air alone, hot
flowing air was compared with unheated
flowing air and static hot air as well as
with a control. The numbers of Campylobacter,
Escherichia coli and coliforms were
measured on small squares of washed or unwashed
transport cage flooring that had been soiled with faeces after drying treatments.
When applied after a water-spray wash
treatment, flowing hot air for 15 minutes
lowered the numbers of Campylobacter to
an undetectable level. The authors reported
that the treatment could provide significant
savings in drying time if used by industry,
suggesting a potential commercial application.
Static heat at similar temperatures
was not nearly as effective, and unheated
flowing air was moderately effective, but
less so than hot flowing air.
The authors concluded that processors
may be able to use a forced-hot-air treatment
to dry cages between transporting
flocks, lessening the number of Campylobacter
on cage flooring, thereby decreasing
the potential for cross-contamination
during live haul.
More findings are reported in the Journal
of Applied Poultry Research, December
2011 [click here].
January 2013