Abstract

A nylon membrane-based filter technique was developed to evaluate the bactericidal efficacy of mastitis control teat dip products. Using this method, we were able to determine that this protocol was both a rapid and effective method for evaluating the efficacy of our iodine- and bronopol-containing teat dips against a variety of mastitis-causing strains of bacteria such as E. coli, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, S. uberis, E. faecalis, and S. agalactiae, S. dysgalactiae, as well as the fungal strain C. albicans. The data presented in this report suggests that this method is useful in the initial assessment of newly developed bovine teat dips, as well as other medical formulations.

Key words: Bactericide, bovine mastitis, disinfectant teat dip.