Litter mycology and the impacts of litter type and preslaughter feed withdrawal on crop bacterial community in broiler chicken

An experiment consisting of two trials was conducted to compare the frequency of occurrence for 8 fungi in six broiler litter materials and to evaluate the impact of litter type and preslaughter feed withdrawal (PFW) on crop bactrioflora of broiler chicken at processing plant. Litter types including rice husk (RH), shredded paper (SP), barley stalks (BS), cow dung (CD), wood shaving (WS) and a mixture of all five litters (MIX) were subjected to microbial decontamination prior to trials using 1 L formaldehyde (20% solution) per each 2 cubic feet and were kept in plastic bags for a period of one week. During the study (8-weeks), a total of 273 samples were taken from various litters at biweekly intervals and examined to monitor the presence of eight fungi species in various litters. At 56d, feeders have been removed form the pens at 0, 2, 4 and 6 h prior to slaughtered birds. Various litters showed significant difference concerning total fungal contamination (P < 0.05). The general frequency of eight fungi species studied was significantly differed for litters of concern (P < 0.01). The maximum and minimum frequencies were observed for Aspergillus sp. and Fusarium sp., respectively. The crop bacterioflora was significantly affected by duration of preslaughter feed withdrawal. The crop bacterioflora of the birds was the normal flora up to 4 h of PFW but afterward E. coli was appeared and started to colonize the crop. It was concluded that various litters have significant differences regarding their potential to host different fungal community and count. Shredded paper has the potential for enhancing a fungal community rich with Aspergillus, a common hazardous fungus. To prevent the crop of broiler from colonization by feed-borne hazardous bacteria prior to reach at processing plant, the PFW must not exceed 4 h.