The Incidence of Morbidity and Mortality in Calves from Birth to Six Months of Age and Associated Risk Factors on Dairy Farms in the City of Hawassa, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Calf morbidity and mortality are major causes of economic losses on dairy farms around the world, with a far greater impact in developing countries like Ethiopia. A prospective longitudinal study on dairy farms in the city of Hawassa was conducted between August 2018 and July 2019, to estimate the cumulative incidence of calf morbidity and mortality and to identify the associated risk factors. For this purpose, a total of 221 calves from 20 farms were examined every 15 days from birth to the age of six months. We used the Kaplan Meier (K-M) method, log rank test, and Cox proportional hazards regression to analyze the data. Of the calves examined, 50.95% (n = 107) had various clinically visible health problems, while 19.5% (n = 43) died from various causes. Using the K-M method, the cumulative incidence of all-cause morbidity at the end of the sixth month of life was 50.12% (95% CI: 43.58% - 57.05%), while the cumulative incidence of all-cause mortality was 20.04% (95% CI: 12.56% - 26.06%). The probability that a calf in the study population would remain disease-free at the end of the sixth month of life was 49.9%, while the probability of remaining alive was 80%. The most commonly diagnosed disease syndrome was diarrhea (64.5%), followed by pneumonia (15%), septicemia (6.5%), joint disease (4.7%), conjunctivitis (3.7%), umbilical infections (2, 8%) and other unknown causes (11.2%). Diarrhoa was also the leading cause of death (46.5%). The other causes of calf mortality were pneumonia (16.3%), septicemia (7%), and unknown diseases (30.2%). In the K-M hazard analysis, the greatest risk of calf morbidity and mortality was observed during the first month of life and then the risk decreased significantly as the calves grew. Of the 21 potential risk factors studied, the multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model showed that age at first colostrum intake, calving difficulty, and calving season were the three predictors that were significantly associated with a higher risk of morbidity and mortality. A higher risk of morbidity was observed in calves that had ingested their first colostrum six hours later (HR = 1.9; P = 0.003), had calving difficulties (HR = 2.96; P <0.001) and were born in the rainy season (HR = 1.64; P= 0.017) compared to calves that had consumed colostrum immediately, had no difficulties at birth and were born in the dry season. The same three factors have been identified to influence calf mortality. The mortality risk was 2.73 (P = 0.002), 4.62 (P <0.001) and 2.74 (P = 0.002) higher in calves that had difficulty calving, ingested their first colostrum meal six hours later and were born in the rainy season, respectively. In general, the calf morbidity and mortality rates identified in this study were beyond economically justifiable limits and calls for educating farmers to raise awareness of some easy-to-fix issues such as colostrum feeding.