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Title: Effect of sand and shaking duration on the recovery of aerobic bacteria, coliforms, and Escherichia coli from prechill broiler whole carcass rinsates.

Author
item HANNAH, J - UGA POULTRY SCI
item FLETCHER, D - UGA POULTRY SCI
item Cox Jr, Nelson
item Smith, Douglas
item Cason Jr, John
item Northcutt, Julie
item Buhr, Richard - Jeff
item Richardson, Larry

Submitted to: Applied Poultry Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/29/2008
Publication Date: 5/29/2008
Citation: Hannah, J.F., Fletcher, D.L., Cox Jr, N.A., Smith, D.P., Cason Jr, J.A., Northcutt, J.K., Buhr, R.J., Richardson, L.J. 2008. Effect of sand and shaking duration on the recovery of aerobic bacteria, coliforms, and Escherichia coli from prechill broiler whole carcass rinsates. Applied Poultry Research. 17:(2)272-277.

Interpretive Summary: Live birds enter the processing facility with an array of bacteria present both internally and externally. During processing, additional contamination can be caused by an assortment of factors. Therefore, plants routinely sample to determine overall carcass contamination however it is difficult to remove all the bacteria from the skin with the current methodology procedure (whole carcass rinse). In this study, utilizing sand and shaking duration was evaluated to see whether increased sensitivity could be achieved. It was found that more bacteria could be recovered from a whole carcass rinse when sand was added to the rinse and shaking duration really was not a dependent on bacterial recovery.

Technical Abstract: An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of added sand and shaking duration on the recovery of bacteria from broiler carcasses using the whole carcass rinse (WCR) method. In each of 4 replications, 12 eviscerated broiler carcasses were obtained from a commercial processing plant prior to chilling. Six carcasses were rinsed in 400 mL of 2.0% buffered peptone for 1 and 4 min utilizing a mechanical carcass shaker and the remaining 6 carcasses were rinsed with 100 g of sterile sand added to the rinse solution. Rinsates were analyzed for aerobic bacteria (APC), coliforms, and Escherichia coli. For each bacterium, the levels recovered from the rinses with sand were significantly higher (P<0.05) than those recovered from the peptone only rinses. Aerobic bacteria, coliforms, and E. coli were 4.0, 3.4, and 3.1 log10 cfu/mL, and those collected from the rinses with sand were 4.6, 4.1, and 3.7 log10 cfu/mL respectively. There was no significant difference in bacterial recovery from the two shaking durations (1 or 4 min) for either rinse treatment (P>0.05). A 25 cm2 area of breast skin was swabbed before and after shaking to determine whether fewer bacteria remained on the skin after shaking with sand. Addition of sand to the rinses did not affect levels of APC recovered by swabbing. In this study, WCR method detected differences in recovery of bacteria whereas swabbing a 25 cm2 section of breast skin did not.