Abstract

This study investigated the effect of different detergents used to clean cows' udders on the microbial content of the produced milk using twenty cows in Ajloun, a northern city in Jordan. The milking process was repeated from same cows on three successive days. On day 1, we milked the cows after cleaning their udders using water only. This was repeated on the two successive days. Thereafter, the cows were milked after cleaning their udders by a different detergent each day. The process was also repeated for three successive days for each detergent. Microbial Analysis was carried out on the collected milk samples. The results indicated that cleaning cows' udders before milking has improved the hygiene conditions and reduced the total bacterial count, total coliform, staphylococci and enterococci spp counts and the values of yeast and molds. Different detergents had different effects on the microbial counts. Finally, the effectiveness of the detergent differed according to its brand. Our findings are important to public health because milk has been a traditional food and ironically a very potent carrier of gastrointestinal infections, if contaminated.

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