Isolation and identification of tannase-producing Aspergillus spp. from poultry droppings

Aim: The study was carried out to isolate and identify Aspergillus species from commercial birds with suspected aspergillosis in the poultry farms within Ado Ekiti metropolis Nigeria. 
 Place and Period of Study: The study was carried out in the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Ekiti State University Ado Ekiti, Nigeria in August 2016.
 Methodology: A total of 35 sick/suspected birds were collected randomly from three poultry farms. At Ago-Aduloju poultry farms, 15 samples were randomly collected from 1000 birds while at Ekiti State University poultry farms, 10 samples were randomly collected from 500 birds. At Federal Polytechnic Ado Ekiti poultry farms, 10 samples were randomly collected from 700 birds. The bird’s selection was on the basis of clinical signs and symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, weight loss, drooping of wings and exercise intolerance. Swab samples were collected from each suspected/sick bird for mycological culture and molecular characterization of the isolates from each bird was carried out. The isolates were identified based on the color of the culture on Potato Dextrose Agar and microscopic examination. Molecular identification was done using 23S Ribosomal RNA Gene and Partial Sequence.
 Results: Six fungal strains that showed similar morphological and cultural characteristics of Aspergillus species were isolated. The isolates were coded ASP 1, ASP 2, ASP 3, ASP 4, ASP 5, and ASP 6. The identified organisms were; Aspergillus fumigatus qH 107 (ASP 1), Aspergillus fumigatus qH 107 (ASP 2), Aspergillus flavus M09 (ASP 3), Aspergillus flavus UOMS6 (ASP 4), Aspergillus fumigatus qH 107 (ASP 5), Aspergillus flavus qH 107 (ASP 6).
 Conclusion: It is evident that Aspergillus species were predominant in poultry farms selected in this study. Necessary precaution should be put in place to prevent the spread of aspergillosis. Poultry farmers are advised to avoid damp environments, moldy feeds, dry and dusty litters. Adequate ventilation should always be provided in poultry farms to prevent Aspergillosis.

Simple SummaryDeveloping countries’ food systems are experiencing rapid transformations led by modern food retail market (MFRM) channels such as supermarkets, fast food firms, hotels, and convenience stores. This paper analyzes the impact of these channels on farm households’ dietary diversity with survey data from Southeast Nigeria. Estimates from the instrumental variable model show that participation in MFRM is associated with a significant increase in dietary diversity. Furthermore, the linkages through which MFRM participation impacts dietary diversity are analyzed using seemingly unrelated regression. Poultry farm income, consumption of poultry products produced by the farmer, and area of vegetable cultivated using poultry droppings have positive association with dietary diversity, while male controlled poultry farm revenue has negative association with dietary quality. Our study provides useful insights that poultry farm managers would find helpful. It also serves as a potential source of information for policymakers for planning as it links smallholder poultry farmers’ participation in modern food retail markets to improved nutrition.This study analyzed the interrelationships between participation in MFRMs and dietary diversity of poultry farming households in Southeast Nigeria. We used cross-sectional data from poultry farmers in Southeast Nigeria and employed instrumental variable and seemingly unrelated regression models to estimate the impact of MFRM participation and major linkages to poultry farm households’ dietary diversity. The results show that participating in MFRMs, relative to traditional markets, improved poultry farmers’ dietary diversity. Moreover, dietary diversity was positively related to higher poultry farm incomes, higher value of own poultry products consumed, and larger area of vegetable cultivated using poultry droppings as manure. Furthermore, increased poultry farm income, higher value of own poultry products consumed, and larger area of vegetable land cultivated using poultry droppings as manure increased the dietary diversity of the farm households. In contrast, a higher share of poultry production revenue controlled by men reduced household dietary diversity. These findings make clear the potential of improving farming households’ nutrition outcomes by promoting participation in MFRMs and the major impact pathways.

<p>The paper examined the emerging poultry by-products market, delving into the nature, revenue generation, influencing factors, and constraints of the market, using data from poultry farmers, aggregators, and cattle farmers. The paper described the nature of the market using descriptive statistics and a flow chart, estimated its contribution to poultry revenue, and examined the factors influencing the proportion of revenue contributed using a Tobit model. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was used to measure the level of agreement among the poultry farmers in ranking identified constraints. The poultry by-product market is currently characterized by only poultry droppings trading, with Côte d’Ivoire as the largest user (76% of the consumption) in cross-border informal trade and an average selling price of 8.39 USD per metric ton. The emerging market for the by-products can be described as seasonal. Annual revenue per poultry farmer for poultry droppings is 1,072.26 USD. Management type, production scale, and membership of poultry farmers’ association influenced the proportion of revenue contributed from poultry droppings. The emerging poultry droppings market provided an opportunity for small-scale farms to earn additional income and organic manure to support sustainable farming. The key constraints among the poultry farmers participating in the by-products market were low prices and a lack of processing and storage facilities. The study recommended that agriculture sector development agencies should support the development of value chains for poultry droppings and other poultry by-products to help expand the market for sustainable agriculture production under the circular economy framework.</p>

This study focuses on the evaluation of the microbiological profile of microbes found in water, soil, droppings, in selected poultry farms under intensive and semi-intensive management system within Lagos, Nigeria. Bacteria and fungi were isolated from poultry droppings, water and soil samples and identified by standard microbiological protocol. The data on the assessment of poultry production system were obtained with structured questionnaire. The bacterial and fungal counts ranged from 29 X 109 CFU/mL - 106 X 109 CFU/mL and 72 X 109 CFU/mL - 115 X 109 CFU/mL respectively. The microorganisms isolated were Streptococcus pluranimalium, Micrococcus sp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella sp., Staphylococcus arlettae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Bacilllus subtilis, Aeromonas hydrophila, Candida tropicalis, Saccharomyces spp, Sporendonema spp., Aspergillus fumigatus, Fusarium oxysporum, Kloeckera spp., Zygosaccharomyces spp and Aspergillus niger. Aspergillus niger (30.5%), Micrococcus sp. (17.6%) and Staphylococcus saprophyticus, (17.6%), occur most frequently while Candida tropicalis (4.6%) and Escherichia coli (5.8%) has the lowest percentage occurrence in poultry droppings. Aspergillus sp. (48.4%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (28.6%) occur most frequently while Penicillium sp. (15.2%), Staphylococcus spp. (7.1%), has the lowest percentage occurrence in poultry soil samples. Fusarium sp. (38.8%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (28.6%), occur most frequently while Aspergillus sp. (7.7%), Staphylococcus spp. (7.1%) has the lowest percentage occurrence in water samples. Most of the isolated bacteria showed resistance to at least two different classes of antibiotics. There is strong evidence that poultry farms in Lagos have utilized many antibiotics and this may have contributed to antibiotic resistant pattern of some bacterial isolates to antibiotics.

Aspergillus species (sp.) that causes opportunistic infections have been increasingly found in human mainly immunosuppressive patients around the world every year. The main objective was to use a rapid and cheap molecular method for monitoring Aspergillus infections and epidemiological approaches. In order to identity Aspergilli species (spp.), a number of molecular methods including restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) have been employed in accordance with ribosomal RNA amplification. The focus of this study — a group of hospitalized patients with clinical and subclinical signs of infection. All of the collected clinical specimens were transported to the medical mycology lab and examined for Aspergillus identification. The environmental specimens were collected from air and surfaces inspected for the Aspergillus within the hospital sources. At first, growth characteristics and microscopic features on mycological media for the identification of Aspergillus sp. were performed. For the confirmation of Aspergillus isolates which similarly found in clinical and environmental sources, molecular method polymerase chain reaction/restriction fragment length polymorphism was carried out. From the mentioned specimens, 102 fungal isolates included Candida spp., Aspergillus spp. and other fungi. Aspergillus flavus (47%), Aspergillus fumigatus (29.4%) and Aspergillus niger (23.5%) all were found as the most common clinical isolates. In addition, Aspergillus isolates from environmental were Aspergillus niger (43.7%), Aspergillus flavus (41.7%), Aspergillus fumigatus (14.6%). Therefore, polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism with a single restriction enzyme can be very useful in the identification of Aspergillus spp., because of its facility in use, speed, robust, and high sensitivity of diagnosis.

This study estimated resource-use efficiency and factors influencing maize production in Kuje Area Council, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to; determine the socioeconomic characteristics of maize farmers; analyse cost and returns associated with maize production; evaluate factors influencing the output of maize production; determine the resource-use efficiency of maize production and identify the constraints faced by farmers in maize production in the study area. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select 60 7sampled maize farmers in the study area. The following tools of analysis were used to achieve the specific objectives of the study. Descriptive statistics; Gross margin analysis; resource-use efficiency and Cobb Douglass production function. The results showed that majority, 75 percent, of the sampled respondents were male while 73.3 percent were married. From the results it can further be deduced that 48.3 percent of the sampled respondents attended secondary school and 31.7 percent attended tertiary institution while the rest stopped at primary school level or did not have any formal education. The results also indicated that about 55 percent of the sampled maize farmers had household size ranges within 6-10. 100 percent of the sampled respondents had no access to credit and 83.4 percent had no access to extension services. From the analysis of cost and returns associated with maize production in the study area, the total revenue (TR) realized on average was N1,269,152.69 and the average total variable cost (TVC) was N188,462.69, the gross margin obtained was N1,080,690. With this result we can say that maize production is profitable in the study area. The results of the resource-use-efficiency revealed that farm size, seed input and labour input were underutilized while fertilizer input and chemical input were over utilized by maize farmers. The results of the Cobb Douglass production function model revealed that the factors influencing total output of maize production in the Study area were farm size (P<0.1), labour (P<0.01), chemical (P<0.01) and Fertilizer P<0.05). The major constraints faced by maize farmers in the study area include; inadequate capital, lack of fertilizer and lack of extension agent. Therefore, the study recommends that maize farmers should be encouraged to join the farmers’ association, and supported with credit facilities. Government should supply inputs like agrochemical, fertilizer and improved seed varieties to maize farmers at a subsidized rate and at appropriate time and extension agents are to guide the farmers in the usage of these inputs while mechanize farming system should be encouraged by providing tractors to replace local farm implements. Good roads are essential in linking maize production areas with available markets around the study area.

Molecular techniques have the advantage that, they are rapid, less laborious, and more sensitive, specific and efficient compared to the conventional method of bacteria identification. This work aimed at Molecular Identification of Selected Multiple Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria Isolated from Poultry Droppings in Akure, Nigeria. Samples were plated on selective and differential media. Isolation and identification of bacteria were carried out using standard microbiological method, Antibiotics susceptibility test was determined by the disk diffusion method, Plasmid DNA extraction, profiling and curing, Genomic DNA extraction, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), agarose gel electrophoresis, 16S rRNA gene sequence and phylogenetic analysis were carried out by standard method. Eight bacteria were selected; <i>Proteus mirabilis, Salmonella typhi, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella</i> <i>sp. Escherichia coli, Shigella</i> sp. and <i>Klebsiella pneumonia</i>, they were resistant to at least seven antibiotics. The result revealed that the plasmid size ranged from 8.60 to 128.00 kilobase pair (kbp) and the number of plasmid carried by bacteria ranged from 1 to 3 plasmids. Based on the 16s rRNA sequences, the following bacteria were identified <i>Salmonella enterica subsp.enterica</i> serovar Typhi str. CT18, <i>Proteus mirabilis</i> strain HI4320, <i>Pseudomonas fluorescens</i> SBW25, <i>Staphylococcus cohnii</i> subsp. cohnii strain 532 Contig16, <i>Salmonella enterica</i> subsp. <i>enterica</i> serovar Infantis, <i>Escherichia coli</i> str. K12 substr. DH10B, <i>Shigella flexneri</i> 2a str. 2457T and <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> strain J1. The presence of multiple resistant bacteria and plasmid mediated resistance of human pathogenic bacteria isolated from poultry droppings in Akure is of great public health importance.

There are over two hundred thousand of poultry farms in Bangladesh. With the annual growth rate of twenty five percent, the number is increasing rapidly. Most of these poultry farms draw their required electricity from the national grid; few of them use natural gas or diesel generators as the sources of energy. Very small numbers of them use poultry droppings for producing biogas to generate electricity and for cooking. But these biogas plants barely run at the peak of their capacity. The over reliance on national grid and fossil fuels aids to the emission of greenhouse gases and it is going to spiral up every year. But the poultry farms can produce their own energy from the poultry droppings which will reduce annual costs, greenhouse gas emission and they can even produce fertilizer from the biogas plant which will add to the generated revenue. The aim of this study is to divulge the possibility of self sufficient poultry farms using their poultry droppings only. A comparison is made among the annual costs, energy efficiency and greenhouse gases emissions from different sources of energy or different mix of them. It has been found that co-production of electricity and fertilizer optimizes the mentioned constraints.

According to "Bangladesh Economic Rivew-2013", the number of registered poultry farms in Bangladesh till February, 2013 is about 65902. This is believed to be more than two hundred thousand by non-government statistics. The number is increasing rapidly with the growing demand of protein and dependency on poultry-birds for this. Each and every farm draws certain amount of electric power. Most of these farms draw power from the national grid; some of them use natural gas or diesel generators and very few farms use their own poultry droppings for producing biogas and generating electricity. Unfortunately, these few biogas plants not even run to the peak of their capacity. The over reliance on national grid and fossil fuels aids to the emission of greenhouse gases and it is going to spiral up every year. If these poultry farms could produce sufficient energy from the poultry droppings then their annual costs, greenhouse gas emission as well as fossil fuel dependency will become nominal. The aim of this study is to reveal the prospect of self-sufficient poultry farms using their poultry droppings only. A comparison is made among the annual costs, energy efficiency and greenhouse gases emissions from different sources of energy or different mix of them. It is seen that coproduction of electricity and fertilizer optimize the mentioned constraints.

This study examined farmers' perceptions of climate change and adaptation strategies in Kuje Area Council, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 75 respondents from a list of 122 registered smallholder farmers across five wards: Kiyi, Shaji, Rubochi, Chukuku, and Jeli. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and interview schedule, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and a 4-point Likert scale. The findings showed that 66.7% of the farmers were male, and 40% had attained tertiary education, indicating potential for adopting innovative climate practices. However, financial constraints and inadequate extension services were identified as major barriers. Additionally, 73% of the farmers were aware of climate change, with 63% observing climatic changes over time. Soil erosion (53.3%), deforestation (46.7%), and water scarcity for irrigation (46.7%) emerged as significant challenges.The most frequently practiced climate adaptation strategies are conservation tillage (92.3%), crop diversification (80%), and early maturing crops (60%). Conversely, strategies such as irrigation (29.3%) and genetically modified crops (25.3%) are less commonly practiced. Limited access to information (42.67%) and difficulty in changing traditional farming practices (21.33%) further constrained adaptation efforts. The study concluded that farmers in the area face significant climate change challenges, including resource limitations, environmental degradation, and inadequate support for adaptation strategies. These challenges have a profound impact on agricultural productivity in the study area. Therefore, the study recommended strengthening extension services, improving access to credit, promoting conservation agriculture, and establishing reliable climate information systems to enhance farmers' resilience and productivity in the study region.

Isolation of Salmonella from poultry droppings and other environmental sources in Awka, Nigeria

Biogas is a mixture of gases produced during the breakdown of biodegradable organic matter in the absence of oxygen. Problems of impurities such as Carbon dioxide (CO2), Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and moisture have to be removed in order to improve the quality of biogas. This study aimed at upgrading the biogas produced from poultry dropping. The Poultry Dropping (PD) used as substrate was collected from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso (LAUTECH) poultry farm. The Continuously Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) available in the Agricultural Engineering Laboratory LAUTECH was used for biogas production. The biogas produced was analyzed using Gas chromatography, AGILENT 6890 before and after purification. The produced biogas was purified using chemical absorption. Distilled water, Silica gel and Iron fillings were used as the scrubbers to remove CO2, moisture and H2S, respectively. The CH4, CO2 and H2S of biogas production before and after purification were 61.42%, 35.83% and 0.67 %; and 89.81 %, 8.22 % and 0.54 %, respectively. The results revealed that the purified biogas has better advantage for cooking over the raw biogas.

Comparative evaluation of biogas production from Poultry droppings, Cow dung and Lemon grass

Despite the wide coverage of study on vulnerability in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria over the years, it was observed that no emphasis has been placed on assessment of vulnerability of croplands to climate variability using the integrated vulnerability assessment and Geo-Informatics technique. This was achieved by determining the climate variability pattern in FCT from 1981 to 2017, determining the exposure index and the degree of sensitivity of croplands to climate variability, assessing the adaptive capacity of farmers to climate variability, evaluating the vulnerability of croplands to climate variability and developing vulnerability maps of croplands using the information produced. Yam, beans and maize were used as referenced crops in this study. Indicators were generated and analyzed on the three components of vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The study used the mixed research design. The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to assign weight to the indicators. The weights were used to generate the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity indices which were used to generate the vulnerability index map. Aggregate vulnerability index (AVI) was finally determined from the weighted sum of all indicators and used to produce the vulnerability map of the six Area Councils. The study shows that Gwagwalada Area Council has the highest vulnerability (0.2323) and Abaji Area Council has the lowest (0.005). Kwali and AMAC Area Councils were highly vulnerable to climate variability (Kwali 0.1562, AMAC 0.1565). Kuje Area Council has low vulnerability (0.0273) to climate variability. Bwari Area Council showed moderate vulnerability (0.0982). The implication of the results is that the three crops (maize, beans and yam) will produce moderately at moderate vulnerability while their production will be marginal and optimal at very high and very low vulnerabilities respectively. Crop production will be optimum in Abaji, marginal in Gwagwalada and moderate in Bwari. The study also revealed that vulnerability assessment is essential in determining the varying degrees of vulnerability in different localities. It also provides information that can help researchers, policy makers, private and public institutions in planning location-based adaptation strategies and prioritizing allocating limited resources in FCT. Agriculture should be heavily subsidized in terms of providing irrigation infrastructure to farmers to reduce over-reliance on rain fed agriculture. Installation of early weather warning system manned with expertise should be made available in all the Area Councils to provide timely and accurate climatic information to farmers.

Background: This study was conducted to explore the contribution of poultry farms to the contamination of the environment with ESBL-producing Escherichiacoli and there with, potentially to the spread of these bacteria to humans and other animals. Hence, the present work is a poultry farm based study aimed to detect prevalence of ESBL producing E.coli among poultry of small scale farmers. Methods: ESBL-producing E. coli were detected at poultry farm (n=40). The E. coli was isolated from poultry droppings in irrespective of diseases. The required data were collected through well-structured interview schedule in farm premises. E.coli isolates were more susceptible to Gentamicin, Aztreonarm, Cefrtrazindime and Cefotoxime. Result: Detection of ESBL isolates was performed by Combined Disc Diffusion Methods. Out of 40 E.coli isolates 12 were phenotypically identified as ESBL producers. The prevalence of CTX-m gene is 50% and Bla (TEM) gene is 50%.