Bacteriological Studies on Pathogens in Egyptian Pigeons.

The prevalence rate of bacterial isolates of public health importance in pigeons was (28.16%). The incidence of bacterial pathogens differed according to health status of examined pigeons and ages either squabs or adults, as it gave the higher incidence in freshly dead squabs (33.33%) and in adults (28.57%) followed by diseased squabs (31.03%) and adults (26.67%) then finally slaughtered pigeons (25.56%). There was a wide range of bacterial pathogens isolated from nasal and cloacal swabs of diseased pigeons including C. jejuni, Citrobacter freundii, D. pneumoniae, E. coli, K. oxytoca, K. pneumoniae, Mannheimia haemolytica, P. aeruginosa, Salmonella spp, S. aureus and Y. enterocolitica. There were variations between the incidence and the species of pathogens isolated from cloacal and nasal swabs either in squabs or in adults K. oxytoca, Mannheimia haemolytica and Y. enterocolitica never isolated from adult. It was appeared that the deaths usually occurred due to combination of more than one bacterium. On the examination of internal organs slaughtered pigeons, there were differences in the incidences of bacterial isolation form different organs. Serological identification of most prevalent isolates revealed 5 Salmonella serovars including, 3 P. aeruginosa serogroups and 6 E. coli serogroups. All examined pathogens were sensitive to enrofloxacin followed by gentamicin then ciprofloxacin. In contrast, streptomycin then erythromycin and colistin sulphate showed the lowest effect. Among the isolates tested, P. aeruginosa was resistant to the most used antibiotics..Most isolated strains of E. coli, P. aeruginosa, Salmonella spp. and Y. enterocolitica from pigeons were elaborating enterotoxin. S. paratyphi A and S typhimurium var. copenhagen were 100% enterotoxigenic followed by S. typhimurium(83.33%) , E. coli O8 and Ps. aeruginosa I (75%) in each. On other hand, lower enterotoxin production was observed in Ps. aeruginosa A (46.15%) and E. coli O111 (44.44%).