Bacterial flora of the vagina and uterus of healthy cats.

Bacterial culturing was conducted on samples from the reproductive tracts of 53 clinically healthy female cats. Aerobic bacteria were isolated from 52 of 53 vaginal swab samples and from 2 of 29 uterine swab samples. Anaerobic bacteria were detected in 4 of 30 vaginal and 1 of 29 uterine cultures. The aerobic bacteria included species of Acinetobacter, Actinomyces, Corynebacterium, Escherichia, Haemophilus, Klebsiella, Lactobacillus, Staphylococcus, and Streptococcus. Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, Streptococcus canis, and E coli were the most common organisms and were isolated from 56%, 52%, and 44% of the vaginal samples, respectively. Anaerobes isolated from vaginal samples included 3 species of Bacteroides and 2 isolates of Peptococcus. The single uterine anaerobe isolate was a Lactobacillus sp. The number of bacterial species isolated from each vaginal culture ranged from 1 to 8 (mean, 3). The number of colony forming units tended to vary inversely with the number of bacterial species detected in each sample.