Reproductive Health Constraints in Dairy Cows Managed Under Smallholder Farms of East Shewa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Reproduction is a basic requirement to increase stock size, successfully replace culled cows and maintain constant milk production in dairy farms. However, the reproductive physiology of dairy cows is disturbed by several factors, the most important of which are reproductive disorders. The current study was conducted to identify major reproductive health problems in two selected zones of Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia. Reproduction and production performance history of selected cows were collected from 123 farm owners. The mean age, parity, age at first calving (AFC), age at first service (AFS), calving to first service (CFS), service per conception (SPC), average calving interval (ACI), the average lactation length and average daily milk yield were 65.8 ± 30.5 M,  2.48 ± 1.6, 30 ± 8.6 M, 19.61 ± 6.3,  3.3 ± 1. 7M, 2.75 ± 1.74 M, 14.3 ± 3.4 M, 11.5 ± 3.4 M and 12.3 ± 6.6 L, respectively. From a total of 252 studied dairy cows, 102 (40.5%) had either a history or active reproductive health problem. Among the problems identified, mastitis (43.6%), abortion (13.8%), retention of placenta (21.3%) and dystocia (7.4%) were found with high magnitude. While Vaginal prolapses (1.6%), repeated breeding (3.25%) and anoestrus (5.3%) were other reproductive health problems with a relatively lower incidence rate. Age (p= 0.01), Breed (p=0.04) and body condition (p=0.04) were identified as risk factors for reproductive problem. The observed reproductive health problems were higher as compared to other reports. Therefore, the constraints need to be addressed using holistic interventions which consist of feeds and nutrition, breeding and health packages.

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/11-11-02

Publication date:June 30^th 2021