Abstract

In this study, in order to determine the importance of clitoral isolated bacteria in problem mares and their correlation with the kind of uterine infections, 41 pure or crossbred Iranian mares were selected and divided into two groups. Twenty pregnant mares were encountered as control and 21 barren and/or repeat breeder mares were selected as test group. Clitoral bacterial samples were collected from pregnant (control) and problem (test) mares, but uterine swabs and cytology smear samples were collected only from problem mares. The kind and number of clitoral bacteria were compared in control and test groups with Chi–square or Fisher exact (two tailed) and McNemar tests. Findings showed that Escherichia  coli was the most frequent isolated bacteria in 80.9% of clitoral and 61.9% of uterine samples of barren, and 68% of clitoral samples of pregnant mares. They should be a secondary contamination. The most important isolated bacteria were β–hemolytic Streptococci, which were isolated from uterine and clitoral samples of the problem mares but not from the clitoral samples of the pregnant mares. There were an important correlation between the clitoral isolation rates of Streptococcus zooepidemicusand Streptococcus equisymilis (ksc = 0.691, p = 1.00) with their uterine isolation rates in barren mares. It was concluded that the examination of clitoral bacteria prior to breeding could be considered as a useful screening test in problem mares, and  the clitoral isolation of β- hemolytic Streptococci could be assumed as an important finding in the problem mares prior to breeding.

Key words: Clitoral bacteria, pregnant mares, uterine infections, crossbred Iranian mares.