Fecal Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Dairy Cows from a 12-Week Clinical Trial

24 healthy lactating Holstein cows were randomly assigned to receive ceftiofur, ampicillin, or a control treatment for 5 days. Fecal samples were collected weekly for 11 weeks to measure the abundance and proportion of resistant Gram-negative bacteria. The dataset, created by Juliano L. Gonçalves and last updated in April 2026, contains results from a 12-week trial analyzing minimal long-term effects of systemic antibiotics on resistance in cow feces.

Use Cases

• Modeling the duration of resistant bacteria shedding in feces based on weekly sampling over 11 weeks.
• Comparing treatment effects on bacterial abundance using data from three randomized groups.
• Analyzing the relative abundance of antimicrobial resistance gene classes, such as MLS, aminoglycoside, and tetracycline.
• Evaluating the proportion of beta-lactam resistant bacteria, reported at 4 to 7% in the results.

Strengths

• Data from a controlled randomized clinical trial with 24 cows across three treatment groups.
• Longitudinal sampling over a 12-week period with weekly fecal measurements.
• Includes phenotypic abundance data on a logarithmic scale and as a proportion of total bacteria.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The 1.2 MB file size suggests a relatively small dataset.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Fecal samples from healthy dairy cows were collected, diluted, and inoculated on MacConkey agar with and without antibiotic supplements for enumeration.

Time Range

Covers a 12-week clinical trial period with weekly sampling.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 14:30:37; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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