Food and Nutrition Sciences, 2014, 5, 614-617 Published Online March 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/fns http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/fns.2014.57072 How to cite this paper: Tessari, E.N.C., et al. (2014) Analysis of the Presence of Clostridium perfringens in Feed and Raw Material Used in Poultry Production. Food and Nutrition Sciences, 5, 614-617. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/fns.2014.57072 Analysis of the Presence of Clostridium perfringens in Feed and Raw Material Used in Poultry Production Eliana Neire Castiglioni Tessari, Ana Lúcia S. Paschoal Cardoso, Ana Maria Iba Kanashiro, Greice F. Zanatta Stoppa, Renato Luis Luciano, Antonio Guilherme Machado de Castro Instituto Biológico—Centro Avançado de Pesquisa Tecnológica do Agronegócio Avícola, Descalvado, Brazil Email: etessari@biologico.sp.gov.br Received 18 December 2013; revised 18 January 2014; accepted 25 January 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Microbiological control of feeds used in industrial poultry production has been increasingly im- portant due to the demands of the market for food safety, as well as the need to ensure better quality of the digestive system of the birds. Microbiological analysis carried out in raw material used in feed production, especially feather, meat, and organ meal, has shown contamination by Clostridium perfrin- gens. In order to study the presence of Clostridium perfringens, a total of 354 samples of feed and raw material were analyzed from January 2011 to July 2013. Samples came from four companies located in the state of São Paulo, with a total of 166 samples of meat meal, 24 samples of feather meal, 43 samples of organ meal, and 121 samples of feed. The following results were obtained: 88 (53%), 15 (62.5%), 16 (37.21%), and 23 (19%) samples were positive for Clostridium perfringens in each group of samples, respectively, with counts ranging from 2.0 × 10 2 to 7.0 × 10 3 CFU/g. Keywords Necrotic Enteritis; Clostridium perfringens; Feed 1. Introduction Control of microbiological contamination in feed and raw materials begins with good sampling programs and laboratory analyses in order to identify sources of contamination and to determine control strategies. Among the different vehicles of pathogens in the poultry production chain, the contamination of feed and raw material for feed production should be highlighted. These are common vehicles of different pathogenic bacteria that may cause clinical and/or subclinical effects in birds, leading to inadequate performance and, consequently,