[Microbiological studies of slaughterhouse broilers]

Studied were a total of 187 broilers after the completion of their slaughter processing, with special reference to the correlation between the weight and the quality of the slaughtered birds and their bacterial contamination. It was found that with the increase in the weight of the slaughtered and processed broilers the total bacterial count with them progressively dropped. The quality of the slaughtered broilers was found to correlate with their bacterial contamination. Least contaminated were broilers of first quality, and the broilers of second quality and those that were not standard were 2.2 and 19.6 times more strongly contaminated, respectively. The microbiologic study of slaughtered broilers varying in weight and quality revealed that the count of coliforms was highest followed by that of the proteolytic organisms and staphylococci.