Anti-Microbial Resistance Profile Of Escherichia Coli Isolates From Commercial Poultry Feeds And Feed Raw Materials

Abstract

Information on the level to which commercial feeds and feed raw materials are involved in the dissemination of anti-microbial resistant pathogenic and commensal bacteria in Nigeria is necessary for feed and stock management. Forty four Escherichia coli isolates from 4 commercial feed brands coded SF, GF, TF and ACF and from 90 various feed raw materials such, fish meal (FM), maize (MA), maize offal (MO), wheat offal (WO), spent grain (SG), blood meal (BM) and soybean meal (SM) etc were screened for anti-microbial resistance profile against 10 antibiotics using the disc diffusion method. Overall, the isolates recorded 80.8 % resistance to cefuroxime, 76.9 % to nalidixic acid, 75 % to ampicillin, and 59.6 % to cotrimoxazole while very low 7.7 % was recorded for tetracycline and 5.8 % for gentamycin, ciprofloxacin and chloramphenicol. Across commercial feed brands, isolates from SF were resistant to nitrofurantoin (100 %), nalidixic acid (50 %) and ampicillin (70 %), while those from TF, GF and ACF were resistant to 7, 6 and 5 antibiotics respectively. Resistance against ampicillin, nalidixic acid and cefuroxime, in isolates from SG, palm kernel cake (PK), MO and WO were high. Organisms isolated from SG and PK recorded high resistance against cefuroxime and cotrimoxazole. Isolates from bone/limestone (B/L) registered 100 % resistance against ampicillin, cotrimoxazole and cefuroxime, while those from maize MA recorded 100 % resistance to cefuroxime and norfloxacin, and over 70 % to nalidixic acid. Soybean meal isolates values for nitrofurantoin, tetracycline, nalidixic acid and ampicillin were high but below 80 %. Thirty fives resistance patterns were observed; with the CF-NB-CO-NA-AM pattern being the most predominant (occurring 10 times). The present data shows that commercial feeds and feed raw materials are important vehicles for the introduction of multi-drug resistance encoding E coli into poultry.