+44 330 818 7254Dashe, YG, Raji, MA, Abdu, PA. and Oladele, BS
A study was conducted to determine the distribution of aerobic bacteria in visceral organs of clinically sick and healthy chickens between November, 2010 and October, 2011. A total of 2000 samples consisting of bone marrow, heart, liver, lung and spleen (400 each) were aseptically collected from 400 clinically sick chickens for bacteriology. Four hundred (400) oropharyngeal swabs were also collected from 400 apparently healthy chickens for bacteriological analysis. Swab from each sample was cultured on 7% defibrinated sheep blood, MacConkey and casein sucrose yeast agar. Presumptive colonies of bacterial agents were subjected to conventional biochemical characterization. The result of biochemical test identified the following bacteria species from the samples of clinically sick chickens; Escherichia coli (7.5%), Staphylococcus aureus (2.3%) and Proteus vulgaris (0.7%) among others. Escherichia coli and Pasteurella multocida were the most frequently isolated bacteria from the heart, whereas, Staphylococcus aureus was isolated mostly from the spleen. The monthly frequency of isolation of P. multocida showed that the bacterium was isolated mostly between the months of July and October. Bacteria isolated from apparently healthy birds indicated that Staphylococcus aureus (20.5%) was the highest followed by Escherichia coli (13.3%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (8.8%) and Pasteurella multocida (1.3%) was the least. It was concluded that aerobic bacterial agents were present in the oro-pharynx of apparently healthy chicken and also widely distributed in visceral organs of clinically sick chickens in Jos, Nigeria.
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