Effect of freezing on bacteriologic culturing of mastitis milk samples

The objective was to determine the effect of freezing and length of freezing in a commercial freezer on the qualitative results of bacteriologic culturing of milk collected from glands of cows with clinical or subclinical intramammary infections. A total of 182 milk samples from cows with clinical mastitis and 55 milk samples of cows with subclinical mastitis were taken from four problem herds. Samples were split into four equal sub-samples. Three of these were frozen immediately at -20 degrees C and 1 was submitted fresh for bacteriologic analysis. At 4, 8, and 16 wk after collection, samples were thawed and submitted for bacteriologic culturing. Freezing and increased length of storage resulted in 1) a decrease in the number of samples that had cultures of Escherichia coli or Actinomyces pyogenes; and 2) an increase in the number of samples that had cultures of coagulase-negative staphylococci. Freezing had no effect on streptococci and Staphylococcus aureus.