ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF COMMON FUNGAL SPP. FROM COMMERCIAL BROILER FEEDS AVAILABLE IN MARKET OF SYLHET

Abstract

A total of 189 commercial broiler feed samples comprising of 63 Starter, 63 Grower and 63 Finisher feed samples were collected from the different areas of Sylhet region for isolation and identification of common fungal species. The selected areas were included Shibgonj, Khadim, Kadomtoli etc. The manufacturing companies were Kazi, Mars, Nourish, Newhope, CP, Aman, Aftab. Among the study company incase of starter feed Nourish, Newhope and CP has no fungal contamination and incase of grower feed Nourish and Newhope has no fungal contamination, but, in case of finisher feed all companies were contaminated by fungal contamination. A total of 144 (76.2%) of the samples yielded positive growth for at least one fungal organism which comprises of 36 (57%) starter, 45 (71.4%) grower and 63 (100%) finisher feeds. The fungi comprises of Aspergillus spp. 207 (69.7%), Fuserium spp. 54 (18.2%) and Rhizopus sp. 36 (12.1%). The frequency of isolation was observed to be highest in Finisher feed samples in which out of total 297, 129 (65.5%) fungal isolates were yielded where as starter was 72 (24.2%) and grower was 96 (32.3%). The study was also conducted to Comparative availability of above fungal spp. among Starter, Grower and Finisher feed samples. The presence of the aforementioned fungi in all the feed samples calls for attention in the storage methods employed by the poultry farmers, livestock feed manufacturers, distributors and the retailers.