TECHNICAL COLUMN
Identification of broiler poultry house dust components using chemical and physical analysis Dust found in poultry housing is a complex substance most likely comprised of a mixture of excreta, feather, feed and bedding material.
Exposure to poultry dust can impair the health of both poultry and poultry farmworkers as it serves as a medium for survival and spread of pathogenic microorganisms and inhalation of respirable particles and toxins (Just et al. 2009; Viegas et al. 2013). It has also proven useful as a population level sample material for tracking pathogen incidence and assessing vaccination efficacy (Walkden-Brown et al., 2013; Ahaduzzaman et al., 2019).
M. Ahaduzzaman, L. Milan, C.L. Morton, P.F. Gerber and S.W. Walkden-Brown University of New England, Armidale, NSW Australia
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Given these aspects, it is important to better understand the composition of poultry dust and the potential impacts on bird and human health. The composition of dust in each shed, and each batch, can vary and be expected to change over time. This study was therefore designed to determine
- technical column -
whether chemometrics (the application of multivariate statistical techniques to chemical analysis data) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) could be used to determine the ratio of different originating materials in dust samples. To enable us to predict the source components of dust, individual materials comprising poultry dust (feed, excreta, feathers and bedding) as well as defined mixtures of the materials, were analysed to establish their elemental character. Settled dust collected late in the batch (35-49 d) from 28 broiler flocks were also tested for comparison. Total chemical elemental concentrations (C, N, Al, B, Ca, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, P, S, Se and Zn) were determined using combustion and inductively coupled plasma
