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.
Highlights
Milk is one of the most essential foods to human beings; it is rich in nutrients vital for growth and maintenance of a healthy body (Vilela, 2002)
This study evaluated the microbial content of raw milk before and after using different detergents used to clean cows' udders in Jordan
There was a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) among the means of different values of total coliform, except the means for detergents 2 and 3 and for detergents 4 and 5 where there were no significant differences among the means
Summary
Milk is one of the most essential foods to human beings; it is rich in nutrients vital for growth and maintenance of a healthy body (Vilela, 2002) It is an emulsion or colloid of butterfat globules within a water-based fluid that contains dissolved carbohydrates and protein aggregates with minerals (Jost, 2007). Milk is vulnerable to contamination by many microorganisms including pathogenic microbes, which can cause the food-borne illness and are a threat to consumer’s health. It has no protection from external contamination and can be contaminated when it is separated from the source animals like cows or buffaloes (Agarwal, 2012). Milk is a suitable medium for most bacteria because of its chemical characteristics such as high water content, approximate neutral pH value and its nutrient contents
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