Distribution of Bacteria in Milk Drawn Directly from the Cow's Udder

An experiment was conducted to determine the distribution of bacteria in aseptically drawn milk. The colony count was found to be highest in foremilk, but the addition of foremilk to the main milk made little difference to the count of the total milk because of the small volume of foremilk. The arithmetic mean colony count for four herds comprised of 97 cows was 3,403 bacteria/ml. Colony counts on total milk (foremilk + main milk) from individual cows showed a wide range of distribution: 16% having