Microbiologicical Studies of Market Eggs in Sharkia Governorate

Two hundred random samples of commercial hen eggscollected from Zagazig markets and different groceries weresubjected for physical and microbiological examination.The physical examination revealed that 175 eggsshowed different types of abnormalities) out of which 86 haddirty shell, 11 had cracked shell, 14 had running air cell, 34had sided yolk, 18 had stuck yolk and 12 had cloudy white.The microbiological examination revealed that themean total colony count/shell in examined egg was 1.81 x 107 ±0.52 x 10 .Coliform organisms could be detected in 47.36 % ofclean egg shells and in 72.09 % of dirty egg shells while inmagma samples the percentage was 119.5 % •The mean coliform count ( MPN/shell ) were 9.26 x10~ ± 3.96 x 105, 1.71 x 108 ± 0.54 x 108 and 18.52 x 104+ 6.59 x 104 in dirty shell, clean shell and egg contentsrespectively. •