Eggs are valuable source of food used throughout the world to feed the ever growing world
population. Majority of freshly laid eggs are sterile, however, the shells soon become contaminated with litter
droppings and dust present in the environment. In this study, the microbial load of egg shell from different poultry
system in Ekosodin, Edo State was evaluated. The results obtained from the study revealed that eggshell samples
from different poultry rearing systems (battery cage, deep litter and free-range chicken eggs) were contaminated
with bacterial and fungal species of public health concern. Microbial species isolated from eggshells were
Enterobacter aerogenes
,
Escherichia coli
,
Citrobacter freundii
,
Bacillus cereus
,
Enteroccocus faecalis
and
Proteus mirabillis
for the bacterial isolates while the fungi isolates include
Mucor
sp.,
Rhizopus
sp.,
Aspergillus
sp.,
Fusarium
sp. and
Penicillium
sp. The bacterial and fungal load of free-range chicken eggshell ranged from
9. 7 ± 0.7 10
4 to 1. 27 ± 0.2 10
5 and 7. 0 ± 0.5 10
3
to 2. 2 ± 0.5 10
4 cfu/g respectively. Bacterial and
fungal counts were 3. 3 ± 0.8 10
4
to 7. 4 ± 0.5 10
4 and 1. 1 ± 0.1 10
4 to 1. 6 ± 0.4 10
4 cfu/g for battery
cage eggshells and 6. 8 ± 0.9 10
4 to 1. 38 ± 0.5 10
5 and 2.0 ± 0.3 10
4 to 3. 7 ± 0.5 10
4 cfu/g for deep
litter eggshells respectively. Statistically, the mean fungi count of deep litter egg shells samples differed
significantly (P<0.05) from the mean fungal count of battery cage and free-range chicken eggshells. Also, the
mean bacterial count of battery cage egg shells differed significantly from deep litter and free-range chicken
eggshells (P<0.05). The presence of these microorganisms on eggshell might constitute a serious risk to
consumers. Proper education to enlighten retailers and consumers by the government on microbial quality of table
eggs is important. Proper sanitation and battery cage system of rearing eggs should be encouraged.
