2012 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416): Determine the incidence and antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, enterococcus, and C. difficile from feedlot cattle in the United States. 1b.Approach (from AD-416): Fecal samples will be sampled by cultural microbiological techniques to determine bacterial presence. Sensititre microdilution plates will be used to determine antimicroibial resistance. 3.Progress Report: This project is related to a portion of objective 1 of this in-house project: To elucidate and provide descriptive data, such as prevalence and/or trends, including antimicrobial susceptibilities, and molecular subtyping for food borne pathogens in food animals through the animal sampling arm of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System - Enteric Bacteria (NARMS) program. It is also related to objective 2 of this in-house project: Be a national resource of enteric bacterial isolates and resistance data for food animals from NARMS and USDA-VetNet. We participated in the USDA-APHIS National Animal Health Monitoring System Beef Cattle Feedlot study. Approximately 6000 fecal samples were collected from a nationally representative sampling of beef cattle in feedlots throughout the United States and shipped to the laboratory for isolation of Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, enterococci and Clostridium difficile. Isolates will be characterized for their susceptibility to a panel of antimicrobials.