Prevalence of bacillus cereus in rabbit meat consumed in Burdur-Turkey, ıts enterotoxin producing ability and antibiotic susceptibility

The study was undertaken to determine the existence, enterotoxin producing ability and antibiotic susceptibility of Bacillus cereus at rabbit meat. B. cereus was enumerated by the surface plating method with mannitol egg yolk polymyxin agar. The BCET-RPLA test was used for detecting of diarrheal type-enterotoxin. The disk diffusion method was used for antimicrobial sensitivity test. B. cereus was found in 18 (36%) of 50 samples of rabbit meat, with the mean contamination level of 2.89x10(3) cfu/g in positive samples. The 8 (44.4%) of the total isolates of B. cereus was able to produce enterotoxin. While antibiotic resistance of B. cereus isolates was found to be 100% penicillin, 94.4% ampicillin, 27.7% streptomycin, 22.2% gentamicin and erythromycin, no resistance was detected to chloramphenicol and vancomycin.