Water is a vital nutrient and plays significant role in poultry metabolism, digestion and absorption of food. One of the most important segments in health management for poultry production is water quality. Drinking water of poultry may act as source of microbial Mirobiological quality testing of the water is necessary for human and animal consumption. Acceptable limit of fecal coliform and total coliform for poultry drinking water is zero and 50 CFU/ml, respectively. This is why proper treatment of the water to reduce bacterial loads is highly recommended.
The antimicrobial efficacy of four water sanitizers and ozone was tested and compared in reducing the microbial counts in artificially contaminated water. Water sample collected from a commercial poultry farm was artificially contaminated with ATCC culture of E. coli (1.0 McFarland units). The water sample was treated with sanitizers and ozone at recommended dose and contact time period. After each experiment, microorganisms were recovered and enumerated by spread plate method. For each disinfectant, residual antimicrobial activity was also checked at regular intervals of one hour up-to four hours post treatment. Each experiment was performed in triplicate. Efficacy of disinfectants was measured as log reduction values were calculated after enumeration of microbes on treated samples and untreated samples. The results were analyzed by one way ANOVA using SPSS software.
All of the sanitizers and ozone treatment at recommended doses resulted into more than two logs reduction in the microbial counts. Ozone treatment of the water samples resulted into maximum log reduction following initial interaction. Mean log reduction values (MLR) for ozone at 15, 60, 120, 180 and 240 minutes post treatment are 2.65, 3.74, 3.64, 4.44 and 5.40 respectively.
Summary
60
Statistical analysis show that the MLR within all sanitizers and ozone did not significantly vary from each other at 15 minutes, one hours and three hours post treatment. At 2 hours post treatment MLR value of Quatovet was significantly higher as compared to other sanitizers and ozone. While at four hours post treatment Dutrion and Quatovet treated groups have significantly higher log reduction values in comparison to other sanitizers and ozone
Results of present study show that all of the tested water sanitizers and ozone can destroy more than 99 % of the microbes present in the water after treatment with the recommended doses. Ozone has the highest efficacy among all sanitizers following initial treatment. However, QAC based (Quatovet) and chlorine based (Dutrion) sanitizers have maximum residual antimicrobial activity. Keeping in view of the efficacy and safety of the tested products, the QAC are supposed to be superior among all other agents.