Colisepticaemia in chickens in Upper Egypt

ABSTRACT

Coliforms were isolated in a pure culture from 138 heart blood samples of 1450 dead chickens investigated, with a recovery rate of 9.52%. All isolates were classified as E.coli by their biochemical reactions and sugar fermentation. Using 55 O and OK sera, 131 strains [94.9%] could be serogrouped into 24 different O groups. 67 strains [48.6%] belong to the following O groups 086, 02, 0128, 078 and 03 and were the most predominant groups. Strains belonged to O groups 055, 01, 026, 0126, 0114, 0127, 0119 and 0157 were detected in a moderate incidence of 31.2% [43 strains]. Out of the 131 serogrouped strains, 124 [94.7%] were capsulated. The capsular antigens K1 [L], K71 [B16], K62 [L], K76 [B20] and K80 [B] were the most frequent types and constituted 58.9% of identified capsular antigens. Only 7 strains [5.3%] were bearing no capsular antigen [K-]