Major animal health problems of market oriented livestock development in Atsbi Womberta woreda, Tigray Regional State

Abstract

An attempt was made to study major health problems of livestock in Atsbi womberta Woreda, northern Ethiopia, from December 2006 to April 2007. Questionnaire survey was carried out on 100 livestock owners to collect information on the livestock production system and the major health problems recognized by farmers in the study area,observational also were conducted. The questionnaire survey result revealed that in cattle infectious diseases (58.5 %) followed by miscellaneous case (27%) and parasitic problem (14.5%), in sheep parasitic problems (50.3%) followed by infectious diseases (46.2%) and iscellaneous cases (3.5%) are the common health constraints and similarly in goats the most important health problems were those caused by parasites (20.5%) followed by infectious cases (63.1%) and miscellaneous diseases (16.3%). In equines miscellaneous cases (63.5%) followed by parasitic diseases (11.5%) and infectious diseases (25.5%) were identified. In poultry NCD (53.5%) was the most devastating infectious disease. In the observational study, in cattle tick (15.8%) and Fasciolosis (14.9%), in caprine pasteurellosis (25.8%) and Abortion (25.4%), in ovine fasciolosis (34.1%) and abortion (22.7%), in equine GI parasites (22.75%) and colic (13.6%) were the common cases frequently appeared during the study time. The retrospective study showed that infectious disease with an average of 28.2%,parastic 46.4% and miscellanosis25.4% were frequently recorded in the woreda veterinary clinic. The study also addressed that the animal production system in the study area in general is traditional with a number of problems. Most of the respondents complained that animal feed followed by water shortage is serious problem. They also indicated that due to uncontrolled animal movement specially from Afar Regional State, disease transmission is a problem.