Food Safety

Strategies that reduce food-borne pathogens in the animal prior to processing for meat could reduce incidences of human exposure to these organisms.  The gastrointestinal tracts of sheep and goats are natural reservoirs of E. coli.  Fecal shedding in live animals is correlated with carcass contamination.  Lambs are often fed a finishing grain-based ration in order to improve productivity.  However, meat goats are predominantly fed a roughage diet until slaughter.  Shedding of E. coli by ruminants is influenced by the diet and therefore dietary changes in food animals during the days prior to slaughter may reduce fecal shedding of bacteria. 

Pre-harvest dietary management will serve as a cost-effective decontamination strategy in small ruminant production systems, particularly for goat processing enterprises, since most of the goat processors in the southern states operate with moderate resources and limited technology.  Research conducted at FVSU include manipulating pre-harvest feed deprivation time, diet (concentrate vs. roughage), and diet change from hay to concentrate.  Pre-harvest management methodologies can be implemented with virtually no additional operational costs to the farmers.  These management methods are also expected to enhance marketability and profitability by improving the shelf life of carcasses and products.

FVSU researchers are also studying other cost-effective pathogen reduction strategies that can be adopted by small and very small processing facilities. Our goal is to determine and compare the microbiological characteristics of spray washing live goats and goat carcasses with ozonated water, electrolyzed oxidizing water, or salt water, as well as to determine the effects of such treatments on subsequent meat quality characteristics. Scientists are also conducting feasibility and economic cost-benefit analyses of introducing these technologies into goat slaughter establishments and meat processing facilities as strategies to inactivate foodborne microorganisms.