A study of bacteriologic status of infertile ostrich (Struthio camelus) eggs

Abstract

There are many obstacles which impede progress in the ostrich industry. Despite a century of commercial ostrich production, there has been little progress in scientific research which deals with management practices, health care, nutrition, or breeding. The fertility of ostrich eggs is poor in comparison with more conventional domesticated birds and is a major problem in the efficient production of ostriches under farming conditions. In order to study the bacterial populations of ostrich eggs that were determined infertile by candling, swab samples were prepared from the contents of 40 infertile eggs and inoculated into tryptic soy broth and selenite-F broths. The media was incubated at 37°C and then subcultured on solid media. The identification of the isolated colonies was performed using standard bacteriological and biochemical procedures. Microbiologic investigations showed bacterial isolation in 45% of the samples from infertile eggs including: Bacillus spp. (33.4%), Staphylococcus spp. (29.1%), Escherichia coli (12.5%), Proteus spp. (12.5%), Streptococcus spp. (8.3%), and Klebsiella spp. (4.2%).