Milk mycoflora survey of dairy cows with or without mastitis

Mastitis in cattle is a serious problem which causes considerable economic losses in dairy cattle herds. The aim of this survey was to identify mycoflora in milk of healthy, clinical and subclinical mastitis of lactating Holstein dairy cows. Milk samples of 154 Holstein dairy cows were collected from 10 dairy cattle herds in suburb of Mashhad, Iran. The treatment groups included 104 lactating dairy cows with clinical (38, 25%) and subclinical (66, 43%) mastitis. Fifty (32%) healthy dairy cows were included as control, as well. Different fungi were isolated from cows with clinical (14%), subclinical (18%) mastitis and healthy animals (15%). There were no significant differences between treatment and control groups (P> 0.05). It was shown that milk samples of cows with clinical and subclinical mastitis were contaminated with 5 different fungal agents. However, milk samples of healthy cows also were contaminated with 5 kinds of fungal agents. Yeast (26%) and Aspergillus fumigatus (18%) were the most common isolated agents. It is concluded that fungal infections (mainly Aspergillus fumigatus) and yeast can occur in mammary glands of lactating Holstein dairy cows with or without mastitis

Keywords:

Cow , mycoflora , lactating , mastitis