Quarter milk samples were taken from 150 cows from three dairy farms in south-east Queensland at drying off, two, four and six weeks after drying off, at calving, and one, two and three weeks after calving. In each of the herds, the cows were randomly allocated to three groups of approximately equal size. One group had all the quarters of all the cows treated at drying off with a dry cow antibiotic infusion containing cloxacillin; the second group was given no treatment, and the third group had selected quarters treated on the basis of their high activity of N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase at drying off. Dry cow treatment resulted in a marked reduction in the number of infected quarters at two and four weeks after drying off, so that the comprehensively treated group had significantly less infected quarters at these times (P<0.02). Twelve dinical cases of mastitis were detected two weeks after drying off in the untreated groups, 10 in the untreated quarters of the selectively treated groups, and no cases in the comprehensively treated groups. These cases were due mainly to Streptococcus uberis and Streptococcus dysgalactiae. The number of infected untreated quarters increased markedly between drying off and two weeks later, but in all three groups there was a marked decrease in the number of infected quarters between six weeks after drying off and calving, suggesting that the mammary glands were more able to overcome infections at this time.
SUMMARY Sterile guarded swabs were used to sample the anterior vaginal and cervical area of 23 normal healthy sows during various stages of the reproductive cycle. The samples were collected one week before farrowing, within 24 hours of farrowing, weekly up to weaning, at mating and at 2 and 3 weeks after mating, and then plated and incubated aerobically and anaerobically. At least one positive sample was obtained from each sow and at each stage of the reproductive cycle. Most positive samples (78.3%) were obtained on the day of farrowing and the least 3 weeks after mating (19.0%). The second highest number of positive samples (45.5%) was found immediately after mating. Although there was no significant difference among sows of different parities, there was a trend for older sows to have more positive samples after farrowing (84.6%). There was a greater decrease in positive samples after farrowing and after mating among younger sows compared with older sows. A wide range of bacteria including aerobic and anaerobic species, were recovered from 142 Isolates. The more representative bacteria were Streptococcus spp (23.2%); Escherichia coll (22.5%); Staphylococcus spp (19.0%) and Corynebacterium spp (13.4%). Of the cultures, 54.7% were pure and 45.3% were mixed. Both the percentage of bacterial isolates as well as the type of culture (pure or mixed) were similar to those frequently reported in clinical cases of vulval discharge syndrome. The results indicate that sows usually develop infections of the reproductive tract at farrowing and mating but these infections do not normally persist.
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