Use of bovine sheath washings for screening for mycoplasmas
Ball, H.J.
Veterinary Record 127(1): 16-17
1990
ISSN/ISBN: 0042-4900 PMID: 2385913 Document Number: 354497
In bacteriological studies of 586 saline preputial washings (20 to 100 ml volumes) from bulls which were either resident at a local artificial insemination (AI) centre or were candidates for entry to the centre, 471 (80%) were infected with ureaplasma/mycoplasma; ureaplasma was isolated from 436 (74%) samples, M. bovigenitalium from 208 (35%), M. canadense from 91 (15.5%) and Acholeplasma laidlawii from 24(4%). The introduction of 2 additional media, one containing antisera against M. bovigenitalium strains and one containing antisera against both M. bovigenitalium and M. canadense, increased the isolation rate of M. canadense and A. laidlawii. A study of the isolations from 19 bulls which were sampled at least 5 times during 2 to 3 years showed that only 15% of the 136 samples were free of both mycoplasmas and ureaplasmas. Only one bull was free of infection for a continuous period; from 9 samples the last six, collected over 15 months were all negative. The other negative samples were collected intermittently from 6 bulls only.