Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the staphylococcal flora associated with wild turkey populations.
Methods and Results: Faecal samples obtained from 26 wild turkeys over a 16‐month period were inoculated onto mannitol salt agar plates to select for staphylococci. Fifty‐seven randomly chosen isolates were identified as Staphylococcus lentus and their susceptibility determined against clindamycin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, oxacillin, penicillin G, rifampin, tetracycline, trimethoprim‐sulfamethoxazole, and vancomycin. Resistance was minimal as only 3 isolates showed resistance to clindamycin, 3 isolates were resistant to oxacillin, 3 isolates were resistant to penicillin G, and 1 isolate was resistant to erythromycin. Multiple antibiotic resistance was also minimal.
Conclusions: S. lentus is the predominant staphylococcal species associated with wild turkey faeces and antibiotic resistance in these organisms is not problematic.
Significance and Impact of the Study: S. lentus has been shown as a potential causative agent of inflammatory reactions in the respiratory tract. Due to increased numbers of wild turkeys and more frequent human exposure, surveys to monitor microbial populations are warranted.
Organisms belonging to the genus Staphylococcus were isolated on mannitol salt agar from the feces of wild caught Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis) from east-central Kansas. All 222 presumptive isolates were confirmed as coagulase-negative staphylococci with Staphylococcus sciuri and Staphylococcus xylosus being most prevalent. Antibiotic susceptibility patterns to five different antibiotics were determined and the results indicated 99% of all isolates were resistant to penicillin G and 59% of the isolates were resistant to oxacillin, a clinical substitute for methicillin. Due to the significance of methicillin resistance in the genus Staphylococcus, 10 randomly chosen oxacillin resistant organisms were analyzed for the presence of the mecA gene, which is known to code for methicillin resistance. The gene was detected in four of the 10 organisms examined. These data indicate that gray treefrogs are harboring inordinately large numbers of methicillin resistant staphylococci as part of their normal flora and that the mechanism of methicillin resistance may be independent of mecA.
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