Major reproductive disorders of dairy cows in and around Asella town, Central Ethiopia

Abstract

Reproductive disorders are one of the most important problems that affect the production and productivity of dairy cows. A cross sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of major reproductive disorders of dairy cows in and around Asella town, Central Ethiopia. For this purpose, a total of 82 owners and/or attendants of dairy cow herds were interviewed using structured questionnaire, and in addition, a total of 300 blood samples were randomly collected and analyzed from dairy cows in the study areas. Accordingly, the overall prevalence of reproductive disorders in the study area was 18.3%, with bovine brucellosis (32.9%), repeated breeding (26.8%) and abortion (14.6%) as the major reproductive disorders of dairy cows. It was also revealed that abortion is mostly common in exotic breeds (48.8%) and relatively less in local cows (9.8%) varying among parity and stage of pregnancy. Thus, it is recommended that strict animal husbandry especially animal feed and health management should be in place to minimize the risk of reproductive disorder occurrence in order to increase the production and productivity of dairy cows in the study area. Key words: Reproductive disorder, bovine brucellosis, repeated breeding, dairy cows.