Monitoring of microbial contamination of stick wound in swine carcasses.

This study was done to evaluate the microbial contamination by Salmonella s pp., Escherichia coli, fecal coliforms, and total aerobic count of the stic k wound of swine carcasses. The effectiveness of trimming the stick wound i n the 2 Quebec slaughterhouses visited was evaluated. A bacteriological ana lysis was done on 276 stick wounds. Results indicated that, before trimming , 0.9% stick wounds were contaminated by Salmonella spp, Contamination by c oliforms was observed in 40.6% of samples, and 27.7% were positive for E. c oli. After trimming the stick wounds, 1.1% were contaminated by Salmonella spp., 34.1% were contaminated by coliforms, and 26.2% were positive for E. coli. The results showed that trimming contributes to reducing significantl y the bacterial total count at the site and that the bacterial load at this site was less important than that found on the brisket.