Characterization of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in rendered animal products

Antibiotics are used in food animal production to treat diseases and also to improve performance. Antibiotics are not used on all farms, and antibiotic resistance is occasionally found on farms that do not use antibiotics. Rendered animal protein products are often included in poultry feeds and could potentially serve as a source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. One hundred sixty-five rendered animal protein products from cattle, poultry, and fish were aseptically collected from poultry feed mills. Fifty-five percent of the poultry meal samples had detectable levels of gram-negative bacteria ranging from 40 to 10,440 colony-forming units/g of sample. Poultry meal and meat and bone meal had the greatest number of samples with bacteria resistant to five or more antibiotics. A high percentage of feed samples (85%) contained bacteria resistant to amoxicillin, ampicillin, clavulanic acid, or cephalothin, whereas few samples contained bacteria resistant to ciprofloxacin, kanamycin, or trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Citrobacter freundii, and Enterobacter cloacae were the most commonly isolated antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Isolation for Salmonella was also performed, with 14% of the meat and bone meal samples containing Salmonella sp. Only one of the meat and bone meal isolates, Salmonella livingstone, was resistant to five or more antibiotics. Many of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria contained integrons, genetic elements that mediate multiple drug resistance.