Surveillance of poultry farms and management of enterobacteria associated diseases through ethnoveterinary medicine

Abstract

Twenty farms in Rajshahi Metropolis, Bangladesh were surveyed from January 2013 to December 2013 to assess the sanitation and hygiene quality of the poultry farms. The study results revealed the maximum disease incidence in January which was directly correlated with temperature and relative humidity and July was found the safer month for poultry production. In the waste management system, 85% of poultry farms scored ‘not satisfactory’ at a satisfactory level. Where a large number of coliform was recorded in different poultry feed samples. Total seven genera as Escherichia coli sp., Klebsiella sp., Salmonella sp., Shigella sp., Enterobacter sp., Citrobacter sp. and Proteus sp were identified from the poultry feed. Among the selected isolates only twelve isolates showed positive β-hemolytic activity. In the toxicity test through direct ingestion into the chicken, all the isolates showed positive results while in the Rose Bengal Agglutination test (RBAT) test only five bacteria showed strong agglutination reactivity.To in vitro control of pathogenic bacteria methanol, ethanol and acquous extract of six plants namely Azadiracta indica, Carica. papaya, Zingiber officinale, Mentha. arvensis, Cynodon. dactylon, Peltophorum pterocarpum were used . C. papaya showed the best performance for creating a zone of inhibition against Shigella sp. Considering the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) value, ethanolic extract of A. indica showed the best performance against the pathogenic bacteria. In the farm trial, it was remarkably noticed that A. indica leaf extract and C. papaya fruit extracts completely control the pathogenic bacteria and improved the live weight gain of the poultry about 11.16% and 11.37% higher than control, respectively. Thus the results suggest that strong policy measures are needed to improve the sanitary quality and change the attitude of poultry farmers and increase awareness of the causes and effects of potential outbreaks of poultry disease. Moreover, the continuous treatment with A. indica leaves and C. papaya fruit extract produced a significant increase in the live body weight and a significant effect on antibacterial activity. So, the effect of the selected plant extracts to be an important source in ethnovaterenirary medicine (EVM) practices to control entero-bacterial diseases of poultry and can be used as growth promoters that can minimize the unjudiciary uses of antibiotics in the poultry sector.