This study aimed at evaluating bacterial shedding, as detected in swabs, feces, and eggs of quails submitted to forced molting by feed fasting and experimentally infected with a Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) strain. In the experiment, 84 40-week-old Italian female quails were distributed in the following groups: FI (quails induced to molt by fasting and inoculated with Salmonella Enteritidis - SE); CI (quails fed with a laying diet and inoculated with SE); FNI (quails induced to molt by fasting and not inoculated with SE); and CNI (quails fed with a laying feed and not inoculated with SE). Feces, cloacal swabs, and eggs were collected on day 1, 3, 7 and 14 post-inoculation (dpi) and submitted to bacteriological analyses. All samples obtained from cloacal swabs were negative for SE. None of the quails of the non-inoculated groups (FNI and CNI) were positive for SE in the fecal samples. Among the inoculated quails, the FI group presented significantly higher (p< 0.05) SE shedding in the feces on 1 dpi than the CI group. On 4 dpi, no significant difference was observed (p< 0.05) in SE shedding between the inoculated quail groups. On 7 dpi, only the FI group shed SE in the feces, whereas on 14 dpi, none of the groups shed SE. According to the results, we concluded that quails submitted to molting by fasting have higher possibility of shedding SE in the feces.

The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of Salmonella in common quails submitted to forced molting. A total of 240 quails were divided at 40 weeks of age into four groups: CG (control, quails not submitted to molting); FM (fasting method); WM (fed wheat midds ad libitum); and ZM (zinc oxide method). From each group, 10 cloacal swabs, 10 fecal samples, and 20 egg samples were collected before molting (two weeks) and after molting (two weeks). The microbiological procedures for Salmonella spp. identification were performed in four steps. The agglutination test, using somatic and flagellar antigens, was used to confirm Salmonella-suspected colonies. According to the methodology applied, none of the samples was positive for Salmonella spp. The results showed that 20.0% of the egg samples from birds submitted to forced molting were contaminated with enterobacteria. It was concluded that, under the conditions of the present experiment, the stress caused by forced molting did not induce infection by Salmonella spp. or increased Enterobacteriaceae contamination levels in the eggs.

The objective of this research was to isolate and to verify the sensitivity to antimicrobial agents of strains of Salmonella sp. isolated from poultry products in the state of Ceara, Brazil. A total number of 114 samples was collected from 63 broiler carcasses derived from two processing plants and two supermarkets, and 51 excreta samples were collected in broiler farms located in the state of Ceara, which used three live production stages. Each excreta sample consisted of a fresh excreta pool from 100 birds. Samples were submitted to microbiological analyses, and the isolated Salmonella strains were tested for antimicrobial sensitivity. No Salmonella was isolated from excreta samples, while broiler carcass samples showed a high contamination rate of11.8%. Three serotypes were identified: Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis, 50%; Salmonella enterica serovar Panama 33%, and Salmonella enterica serovar Newport, 17%. As to the susceptibility tests to antimicrobial agents, 100% of the isolated Salmonella strains showed resistance to Ampicillin and Tetracycline, and sensitivity to Gentamycin, Netilmycin, Carbenicillin, Chloramphenicol.

This work has the objective of verifying the interference of infectious bursal disease virus in the antibody production against Newcastle disease virus and infectious bronchitis virus. The experiment was carried out with 640 day-old-chicks from a 42 weeks old hen flock. The birds were separated into eight experimental groups (n=80/group) and were submitted to different combinations of vaccinations, with live vaccines, to Newcastle disease, avian infectious bronchitis, and infectious bursal disease with diverse combinations of days of vaccination. We verified that the utilization of polyvalent vaccinal programs have a different efficacy comparing to monovalent vaccinations when Newcastle disease, infectious bronchitis, and infectious bursal disease vaccinations are applied. This way, the use of vaccinations to infectious bursal disease in polyvalent vaccinal programs is desirable due to improvement of NDV response with the presence of IBV by the probable reduction of interference of IBV under NDV.

The phenomenon of viral interference between live vaccines against Newcastle Disease and infectious bronchitis has been reported since the 50's and many researchers have reported its prejudicial effects on avian immunization. Therefore, this study evaluated the effect of associated vaccines on the interference between Newcastle disease virus (NDV) and infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in broilers. There were 400 broiler chicks divided into five groups. The groups were submitted to mono or polyvalent vaccinations against IBV and NDV, except for the non-vaccinated control group (CG). Sera were collected at 35 and 45 days of age and submitted to serologic tests to assess antibody levels. It was observed the occurrence of interference in the immune response against NDV by the use of associated vaccines to NDV and IBV; however, the group that was immunized with commercial combined vaccines (IBV+NDV) presented antibody titers to NDV similar to the group that was given only vaccine against NDV. We concluded based on these preliminary studies that the interference of IBV on the immune response against NDV depends also whether the association between the two vaccines is done just before vaccination or in the manufacturing laboratory.