Rejections due to Bacterial Infections in an Ovine Abattoir

Rejections due to Bacterial Infections in an Ovine Abattoir

Over the course of a year, organs rejected during meat inspection were sampled from an ovine abattoir that slaughtered both sheep and lambs. The aim of this study was to determine which bacterial diseases go unnoticed throughout a sheep’s useful, and to demonstrate how basic laboratory equipment can be used to develop bacteriologic protocols that detect common bacterial species, ultimately helping the abattoir management system prevent disease from reaching the human food chain. Rejections from meat inspection were processed in a veterinary laboratory to determine the final diagnosis and the etiology of such rejections. The ovine pathologies found were few in number and very dependent on the age of the animal. The bacterial disease that was most prominent for its high prevalence was enzootic pneumonia, followed by liver and lung abscesses, caseous lymphadenitis, and other lung processes like purulent lymphadenitis and pneumonitis. Season was found to be an important variable, particularly in cases of enzootic pneumonia and caseous lymphadenitis. However, mycoplasma infections needed more specific and complex techniques in order to be detected.