Ensuring good environmental conditions of the poultry houses can be costly for the farmers, but without it losses due to poor bird health and performance due to poor air quality can be much more detrimental to net returns. The goal of this study was to investigate the variations in air quality in various areas inside the laying hen houses. Ten houses with laying hen conventional battery cages were measured for O 2 , H 2 S, CO, NH 3, temperature, relative humidity, CO 2 , airfl ow and luminance. The results of the physical measures showed that temperatures in the houses were between 15.31-25.6°C, the relative humidity 48.03-81.12%, while the luminance rarely exceeded 8 lux. As for the gasses, the values for NH 3 rarely exceeded 8 ppm, although at some measuring points it reached 26 ppm. O 2 was generally at 20.9 %, and the levels of CO 2 were very low. No presence of H 2 S and CO was detected. In this study it was concluded that the measurement of the air quality in a house can vary depending of the places this measures are taken. Multiple measurement points are important because they may make the staff aware of the problems connected to low ventilation and culmination of harmful gases. The air quality in different positions in the houses is of great importance not only for the animal welfare, but also for the safety of the staff.
Commensal Escherichia coli has the potential to easily acquire resistance to a broad range of antimicrobials, making it a reservoir for its transfer to other microorganisms, including pathogens. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of resistant commensal Escherichia coli isolated from dairy cows’ feces. Phenotypic resistance profiles and categorization were determined by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) testing with the broth microdilution method, while the PCR method was used to determine the presence of resistant genes. Out of 159 commensal E. coli isolates, 39 (24.5%) were confirmed to have resistance. According to the MIC values, 37 (97.3%) and 1 (2.7%) isolate were phenotypically categorized as ESBL and ESBL/AmpC, respectively. All isolates showed resistance to ampicillin, while 97.4%, 56.4%, and 36% showed resistance to cefotaxime, ciprofloxacine, and azitromycine, respectively. Not all isolates that showed phenotypic resistance were found to be carrying the corresponding gene. The most prevalent resistant genes were gyrA, tetA, sul2, and tetB, which were present in 61.5%, 64%, 54%, and 49% of the isolates, respectively. The results clearly indicate that, besides their resistance to multiple antimicrobials, the commensal E. coli isolates did not necessarily carry any genes conferring resistance to that particular antimicrobial.
Campylobacter jejuni is one of the most important food borne pathogens. Since the start of the 21 st century C. jejuni is the leading cause for food borne enteritis. Another point of attention is the change in the antimicrobial resistance of this microorganism towards some critical antimicrobials used in the human and veterinary medicine. In this study samples were taken from three points in the broiler meat production (farm, slaughter line and cold storage of the meat before shipping to the market). A total of 283 samples (cloacal swabs, caeca and carcass swabs) were analyzed for the presence of C. jejuni. The isolates of C. jejuni were confirmed with the conventional microbiological method and with the use of multiplex PCR method. Both methods confirmed the overall prevalence of C. jejuni of 39.2%. In the second part of the study 108 confirmed isolates of C. jejuni were analyzed for the presence of resistance genes (CmeB, Bla oxa-61 , tet(O), aph-3-1 and aadE). The analysis in the third part of the study was concentrated on the antimicrobial resistance of the C. jejuni isolates towards three important antimicrobials (ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and tetracycline). The PCR method used revealed highest prevalence for Bla oxa-61 (25%), followed by CmeB and tet(O) genes (19.4%) and aadE with 13.9%. The aph-3-1 gene was not detected in none of the C. jejuni isolates. C. jejuni isolates in this study showed the highest resistance towards ciprofloxacin (63%) and tetracycline (50%) while the resistance towards erythromycin was very low (5.6%).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.