Status quo: Levels of Campylobacter spp. and hygiene indicators in German slaughterhouses for broiler and turkey.

Poultry is a common reservoir for Campylobacter and a main source for human campylobacteriosis. With broiler being the predominant poultry for food production, most food safety related research is conducted for this species, for turkey, few studies are available. Although animals are typically colonized at the farm level, the slaughtering process is considered an important factor in re- and cross-contamination.

Type, areal extent and localization of carcass contaminations during industrial pig slaughter.

The aim of the study is to provide an up-to date overall evaluation of visual contamination occurring on the slaughter line in order to provide a basis for implementing contamination control measures and to the hygienic quality of the processes. For this purpose, 627 contaminated pig carcasses in an industrial slaughterhouse in north western Germany were examined in 2021 for its distribution of type, areal extent and localization of slaughter contamination. Prior to official meat inspection, two persons visually scanned dorsal and ventral surfaces of the eviscerated but not yet split pig carcasses from cranial to caudal and recorded types, areal extent and localization of the contamination.

Agar Contact Method as a Valuable Tool to Identify Slaughter Hygiene Deficiencies along the Slaughter Process by Longitudinally Sampling Pig Skin Surfaces.

Examinations of total viable counts (TVCs) and spp. on the skin of individual pigs during the slaughter process are useful to identify abattoir-specific risk factors for (cross-)contamination. At seven process stages (lairage to before chilling), pigs were bacteriologically investigated by repeatedly sampling the same animals using the agar contact method.

A Bacteriophage Cocktail Reduces Five Relevant Serotypes at Low Multiplicities of Infection and Low Temperatures.

are important pathogenic bacteria and, following , they are the second most common cause of bacterial foodborne infections worldwide. To reduce the presence of bacteria along the food chain, the application of bacteriophages (phages) may be a promising tool. In this study, the lytic properties of six phages against five relevant serotypes ( Enteritidis, .

Health Monitoring of Fattening Pigs - Use of Production Data, Farm Characteristics and On-Farm Examination.

Background: The use of processed secondary data for health monitoring of fattening pigs has been established in various areas, such as the use of antibiotics or in the context of meat inspection. Standardized scores were calculated based on several sources of production data and can be used to describe animal health in a large collective of pig units. In the present study, the extent to which these scores are related to different farm characteristics and management decisions were investigated.