Vet World   Vol.10   April-2017  Article-6

Cross-sectional study on bovine mastitis and its associated risk factors in Ambo district of West Shewa zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Background and Aim: A cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the prevalence and associated risk factors of mastitis in dairy cows.

Materials and Methods: A total of 302 dairy cows were selected from all volunteer dairy farms in Ambo district of West Shewa Zone, Oromia region. Thorough clinical examination was made on all lactating cows for evidence of signs of clinical mastitis followed by collection of milk sample for examination of gross changes of milk secretion and California mastitis test.

Results: About 126 (41.7%) cows had mastitis, of which 9.9% (30/302) were clinical and 32.8% (96/302) were subclinical mastitis cases. The quarter level prevalence was 44.4% (536/1208), comprising 9.3% (112/1208), clinical and 32.8% (396/1208) subclinical forms of mastitis. In addition, 5.5% (66/1208) of teats were found to be blind on the clinical examination of udder and teat. The Chi-square analysis of intrinsic risk factors revealed significantly (p<0.05) higher prevalence of mastitis in crossbred cattle (47.2%) than indigenous (15.4%), in cattle above 7 years (75%) than less than 2-6 years of age (28%) and cows given more than 4 calves (81.3%) than those with less than 4 calves (31.1%) irrespective to their lactation stage. There was also significantly (p<0.05) higher mastitis prevalence in larger (46.6%) than smaller herds (24.2%) and among the farming systems in semi-intensive (47.1%) and intensive (42.3%) than extensive (8.1%) management system.

Conclusion: This study indicated a higher prevalence of mastitis linked with several risk factors. Thus, early diagnosis and regular screening of cows for subclinical mastitis together with proper therapeutic management of clinical cases are of paramount importance. Moreover, control and prevention strategies should be designed and implemented with great emphasis given to risk factors to reduce bovine mastitis and its impact on milk production and food security. Keywords: Ambo district, California mastitis test, dairy cows, mastitis, prevalence, risk factors.

Keywords: Ambo district, California mastitis test, dairy cows, mastitis, prevalence, risk factors.

How to cite this article: Sarba EJ, Tola GK (2017) Cross-sectional study on bovine mastitis and its associated risk factors in Ambo district of West Shewa zone, Oromia, Ethiopia, Veterinary World, 10(4): 398-402.

Received: 15-08-2016  Accepted: 25-02-2017     Published online: 17-04-2017

Corresponding author: Edilu J. Sarba   E-mail: edilujorga@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2017.398-402

Copyright: Sarba and Tola, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.