Jm. Gopo et Gn. Banda, OCCURRENCE OF SALMONELLA ON MEAT AND PRODUCTS IN AN OSTRICH ABATTOIR AS DETERMINED WITH A DNA-PROBE, South African journal of animal science, 27(1), 1997, pp. 1-6
This study was conducted to determine the status of Salmonella during
the processing of ostriches to ostrich meat and products. When a total
of 1429 samples, collected from fillet, liver, gizzards, bloodmeal, s
kins, heart, faeces, large and small intestines, carcases, wash-water
from feathers and from carcases, water before wash and other sources d
uring the ostrich processing, were screened for Salmonella spp, using
a Salmonella specific DNA probe, the results showed that 16.9% of the
samples were positive for presence of Salmonella. Further analysis sho
wed that (61/120) 50.8% of all the ostriches tested were positive for
Salmonella upon arrival at the slaughter house. These results further
showed that 33.3% of the carcases tested were, positive for Salmonella
. This indicated that the ostriches may have been contaminated at the
rearing farm environment, during transportation or even at the abattoi
r environment itself. The products which were Salmonella positive were
: gizzards (5%); the skins (8.3%); bloodmeal (4.2%); large intestines
(26.2%); small intestines (16.1%) and faeces (44.2%). Products which w
ere negative for Salmonella presence included: heart tissue, liver, fi
llet steak and meat-and-bone-meal. When the positive samples were furt
her analysed to determine the level of bacterial concentrations in eac
h positive sample, the results showed that the main ostrich products f
or export, such as ostrich meat, meat and bone-meal and ostrich fillet
were negative for Salmonella. The only export products that showed Sa
lmonella presence, were the skins with only an 8.3% positivity rate. T
he bacterial concentrations in the positive skin samples were so:low t
hat Salmonella contamination in this product is probably eliminated th
rough further processing, such as tanning before export of this produc
t.