Prevalence and Potential Risk Factors of Bovine Clinical Mastitis in Bonke District, Gamo Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia has the largest cattle population in Africa with an estimated population of 56.71 million. Among these, the cow represents the biggest portion of the cattle population of the country. Currently, around 20.7% of the total cattle heads are milking cows. 85-89 percent of milk is contributed from cattle out of the total annual national milk production in Ethiopia that ranges from 797, 9000 to 1, 197, 500 metric tons of raw milk equivalents.. However, this amount does not satisfy the national demand for milk and milk products in the country due to a number of complex and interrelated factors including inadequate feed and nutrition, widespread diseases, the poor genetic potential of local breeds, poor market chain, and inefficiency of livestock development. Concurrently, mastitis is one of the major and expensive diseases which can alter milk composition, reduce the quality and quantity of milk yield, and indeed cause the culling of dairy cows at their age of high productivity. Clinical mastitis is the types of mastitis emphasized in this study. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 384 lactating cows to assess the prevalence of bovine clinical mastitis and its potential risk factors in the study area. Out of these 41(10.7%) were found positive for clinical mastitis. All the potential risk factors considered in this study showed statistically significant difference (P < 0.05). The present study concludes that mastitis was a key health problem of lactating cows in the area. Therefore, deliberate control measures against the disease and regular reconnaissance measures are recommended. Keywords: Bonke; bovine clinical mastitis; prevalence; risk factor.