An epidemiological Study on Bovine Mastitis in Smallholder Dairy Cows in Northern State, Sudan

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was carried out from March 2012 - September 2012 to estimate the prevalence and assess contribution of major risk factors for the occurrence of bovine mastitis in small holder dairy cows in Northern state, Sudan. Out of 400 lactating cows (172 local and 228 cross) in 121 smallholder dairy farms were investigated, the prevalence of clinical and sub-clinical mastitis at cow level was 10.5% and 72% respectively. Risk factors such as previous exposure to mastitis (X2 = 158.9, P = 0.00,), type of quarter (X2 = 3.678, P = 0.055), sharing of milkman between farms (X2 = 3.518, P = 0.061) and yielding milk (X2 = 3.769, P = 0.052) showed statistically significant association with mastitis. However, risk factors such as age, health score, injuries in udder, presence of ticks of udder, herd size, washing of udder and teats and stage of lactation did not show statistically significant association with the occurrence of mastitis. In the multivariate analysis, previous exposure to mastitis (Exp (B) = 5.929, P= 0.00) and sanitary practice (Exp (B) = 5.979, P= 0.033) were found to be the most statistically significant risk factors.