[Rate of decomposition of keratinous material used by various organisms]

Keratinous materials such as feather, horn and nail are resistant to enzymatic degradation because they contain about 11-12 % cystine. However these materials can be used as a substrate by certain microorganisms. In this experiment 3 bacteria with different keratinous activities isolated from beforehand have been grown on ground feather. These microorganisms have rapidly used and as a result decomposed more than 60 % of the substrate in the first 3 days. But the amount of microbiological mass which has grown on the substrate is not high.