An Evaluation of Techniques Commonly Used to Quantitatively Determine the Bacterial Population on Chicken Carcasses

Abstract

FIVE techniques are currently in use for the quantitative determinations of bacterial numbers on the surface of chicken carcasses. These methods are the cotton swab, alginate swab, spot plate, tissue sample and carcass rinse techniques. Gunderson et al. (1954) compared the cotton swab and spot plate techniques and found them to be quantitatively similar. Ayres et al. (1956) found that there was a consistent relationship between the bacterial numbers removed by the cotton swab technique and those recovered from the rinse technique. These workers made the assumption that either method was acceptable but preferred the cotton swab method because it was more convenient and did not give underestimates. Mallman et al. (1958) reported that cotton swab and rinse counts paralleled each other at the various levels of contamination but the cotton swab counts were more variable. From these results Mallman et al. concluded that the rinse technique is a more …