Antibiotic resistance and transferable antibiotica resistance Escherichia coli isolated from calves on a modern farm with therapeutic problems and unsatisfactory management conditions.

On a farm with therapeutic problems and unsatisfactory management conditions, the occurrence of antibiotic resistance and transferable antibiotic resistance has been studied in E. coli isolated from calves which were 5 and 30 days old. Strains with resistance to up to seven antibiotics as well as transferable resistance against up to five antibiotics were recorded. On an average, 4.2 strains with different patterns and 4.0 different strains with transferable resistance were isolated from each calf. The corresponding figures previously found for healthy control calves were 1.6 and 1.1 strains, respectively. Resistance and transferable resistance were most common against sulphonamide and penicillin.