Bacteriological quality of raw materials used in Finnish mink feed.

Mink feed raw materials were analyzed for total bacterial count, the number of faecal streptococci, the coliform count, the number of haemolytic bacteria and the number of sulphite reducing bacteria. The investigation comprised samples from the following raw materials: four slaughter-house offal products, preserved and unpreserved slaughter blood, Baltic herring, cod filletting offal, fish silage, blood meal, fish meal, meat-bone meal, protein concentrate, brewer’s yeast and cereal feed. The slaughter-house offals and unpreserved slaughter blood had the poorest quality, in terms of all the bacterial types for which the samples were analyzed. There were statistically significant differences in bacterial contents between slaughter-house offals from different sources. The preserved slaughter blood had significantly lower bacterial contents as compared to the unpreserved slaughter blood. Single samples of the cod filletting offal, Baltic herring and the blood meal had relatively high total bacterial counts, but the specified mean bacterial counts were relatively low. The bacterial counts for the rest of the investigated raw materials were relatively low.