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Overall objectives include improving safety and quality of poultry meat and eggs through research such as evaluating methods, compounds, or both on reducing or eliminating bacteria on meat and table eggs, while maintaining or improving product quality; decreasing product defects due internal (bone marrow) or dietary supplements (zinc); and, studying possible routes of vertical and horizontal transmission of Salmonella and Campylobacter in the turkey production cycle.<P> Specific objectives include: 1) determining the number and types of bacteria present on processed turkey carcasses; 2) determining potential of vertical and horizontal transmission of pathogens in turkeys; 3) determining the prevalence of pathogens in pastured poultry flocks; 4) determining the effect of sonication on reducing bacteria inhabiting the shell of table eggs; and, 5) determining the effects of zinc on chicken muscle color. <P> Expected outputs include knowledge of bacterial pathogens on poultry products that lead to effective intervention treatments, for both commercially-produced product and processed product from small growers and processors. Knowledge for improving cooked poultry meat quality by reducing red discoloration is also expected.
Non-Technical Summary: <BR>Poultry meat and eggs are widely consumed and are a significant portion of the diet of most Americans, easily exceeding 100 pounds consumption per capita. However, these products have been implicated in several outbreaks of foodborne illness and may harbor several different pathogens. Improvements in food safety of these products is beneficial to both producers and consumers, especially reduced consumer illness (translating to less human suffering, lost-time productivity and lower health care costs). Improved product quality is also economically important as consumers tend to purchase higher quality items if price points are similar. Safer poultry poriducts, ncreased product marketability due to higher quality, and improved processing efficiency benefits both poultry processors and consumers. <P> Approach: <BR> 1) Turkey carcasses from a commercial processing plant pre-chill will be tested to determine where on the carcass bacterial contamination most likely to occur during processing. Sampling will include cutting portions of the carcass and rinsing to recover bacteria. Comparison of carcass swabbing and low volume rinsing methods will also be conducted on turkey carcasses. 2) Turkey breeder poults will be inoculated with marker strains of Campylobacter and Salmonella and monitored by fecal and tissue samples for 60 weeks, along with eggs and resulting meat poults through 16 weeks, then processed and sampled). The house environment and insects will also be monitored during the study, as will a nearby control flock. 3) Pastured broiler will be sampled at processing for Campylobacter and Salmonella prevalence and numbers of E. coli. At both on-farm processing and a small processing plant whole carcass rinses and ceca wil be collected and tested. 4) Table eggs will be collected and inoculated with a culture of coliform bacteria and pathogenic bacteria, then placed in an ultrasonic bath or washed normally (control), then levels of remaining bacteria will be determined using a shell crush and rub method. Various approved disinfectants may also be added during sonication and washing. Egg shell strength may be measured with an Instron testing machine to ensure sonication does not reduce product quality. 5) The effect of dietary zinc on broiler muscle color will be evaluated using breast muscle from birds fed various levels of zinc or none (control). Harvested fillets will be measured with a colorimeter.