ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF BACTERIA AND FUNGI FROM RAW COW MILK AND YOGHURT

ABSTRACT This study focused on isolation and identification of bacteria and fungi as well as hemolysin production. Cow milk were aseptically obtained from rattle ranch behind Uwelu primary school Benin City in sterile universal bottles while peak milk and yoghurt were purchase from Uselu market and immediately transported to the Department of Microbiology, University of Benin for bacteriological analysis. All the samples were analyzed within 24hrs of collection. One milliliter (1 ml) of each milk sample and yoghurt were hemogenized in sterile test tube containing 9 ml of distilled water and 1 ml of each dilution were plated and incubated at 37 oC for 24 hours. Identification of the isolates was confirmed by cultural, microscopic and some biochemical tests. Biochemical test was carried out for identification of the bacterial isolated. The bacteria isolated (S. aureus, Streptococcus sp., Lactobacillus sp., Escherichia coli, Psuedomonas aeruginosa, Micrococcus sp., Bacillus sp., and Serratia marsescens). were subjected to commonly used antibiotics in Nigeria using Kirby Bauer agar disc diffusion technique, in this study, all isolates were highly sensitive to ciprofloxacin 33(100%). Ciprofloxacin was proved to be the most effective against the Gram positive and Gram negative isolates studied in this work. The bacterial count of cow milk 14 × 10 3 cfu/ml was high compare to peak milk and yoghurt 7.3 × 10 3 , 7.65 × 10 3 respectively. While the fungi count in yoghurt 2.25 × 10 3 was considerably low compare to the count of cow milk and peak milk 5.15 × 10 3 , 3.15 × 10 3 respectively. In conclusion, this study has shown that contamination of milk particularly in the traditional farming systems and in the informal milk market is