Bacterial flora from dead-in-shell chicken embryos and their drug resistance in Fars Province of Iran

Abstract

Dead-in-shell chicken embryos from two commercial hatcheries in Shiraz (a south province of Iran) were included in this study, for isolation of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. One hundred pooled samples containing 1 000 dead-in-shell chicken embryos were cultured for the presence of bacteria comprising Escherichia coli (32 isolates), Staphylococcus aureus (15 isolates), Klebsiella spp. (12 isolates),Salmonella
typhimurium (10 isolates), Arizona spp. (7 isolates), Pseudomonas spp. (5 isolates) and 1 isolate each of Streptococcus spp, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtils and Proleus spp. were identified. No anaerobic bacterium was isolated. High incidence of pathogenic strains of bacteria from dead-in shell chicken embryos was recorded. It suggested that the isolates might have contributed to the embryonic mortality and reduced hatchability. The antibiotic resistance pattern of bacteria isolated from dead-in-shell chicken embryo revealed that E.coli developed highest resistance to tetracycline (71.88%) and nalidixic acid (50%).