Assessment of Dairy Farmers’ Hygienic Milking Practices and Awareness of Cattle and Milk-Borne Zoonoses in Jimma, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess smallholder urban dairy farmers’ milking hygiene practices and awareness of cattle and milk-borne zoonoses in Jimma, Ethiopia. Data were collected from a total of 54 randomly selected dairy farmers using structured questionnaire. The results of the study showed that all respondents practiced hand milking, with twice (88.9%), thrice (7.4%) and once (3.7%) milking frequency per day. Most (93.6%) farmers were adhered to dairy hygiene practices. Majority (85.9%) of the farmers washed hand, milk utensils and udder before milking. Over 70.0% of the farms used treated municipal water supply for farm activities. About 61 and 13% of the farmers used common and individual towel for wiping udder, respectively. None of the farmers practiced post-milking dipping of teats and dry cow therapy. Of all the farmers interviewed, 57.4% were aware of anthrax only, while 42.6% were aware of anthrax, mastitis and tuberculosis are cattle zoonoses. Respondents’ awareness levels of milk-borne zoonoses were 13, 11.1, 29.9, 70.4 and 7.4% for anthrax, brucellosis, mastitis, tuberculosis and salmonellosis, respectively. About 13, 27.8, 75.9 and 35% of the respondents reported that routes of contracting the listed cattle and milk-borne zoonoses were through contact with infected animal, contact with infected animal products, consumption of infected meat and consumption of infected milk, respectively. None of the farmers cooled milk before sale. Over 92% farmers boil milk before consumption, while 100% respondents and their family consumed unboiled sour milk (ergo). Based on the findings of this study, farmers’ awareness level on cattle and milk-born zoonoses was low except for tuberculosis. Thus, to reduce animal and public health risks arising from cattle and milk-borne zoonoses, it is imperative to strengthen farmers’ awareness, extension services and training programmes.

Keywords: Dairy cattle, farmers’ awareness, milking hygiene, milk-borne zoonoses, urban