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              Open Access  
Copyright: The authors. This article is an open access 
article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) which permits unrestricted use, 
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly 
cited. 
 
                              
                              
                              Original Research 
                              
                              8. 
                              
                              Prevalence and etiology of subclinical mastitis in 
                              small ruminants of Tigray regional state, north 
                              Ethiopia - 
                               
                              
                              T T Gebrewahid, B H Abera 
                              and H T MenghistuVet World. 2012; 5(2): 103-109
 
                
              doi: 
              10.5455/vetworld.2012.103-109 
                
              
              
          
 
              Abstract 
 
                              
                              A study was conducted at Kafta Humera and Tanqua 
                              Abergelle Districts from April to June, 2011 to 
                              assess the prevalence of subclinical mastitis in 
                              lactating small ruminants and identify bacterial 
                              causative agents. A total of 390 lactating animals 
                              comprising 255 goats and 135 sheep were randomly 
                              selected from population and screened for evidence 
                              of subclinical mastitis. The overall prevalence of 
                              subclinical mastitis was found to be 18.03% 
                              (46/255) and 28.14% (38/135) in goats and sheep, 
                              respectively. California mastitis test (CMT) 
                              positive milk samples were subjected to 
                              bacteriological examination and the following 
                              bacteria were isolated; coagulase negative 
                              Staphylococcus (44.7%), Staphylococcus aureus 
                              (27.7%), Escherchia coli (17.0%) and streptococci 
                              (10.63%). Risk factors; species (p = 0.021), study 
                              site (p < 0.001), sheep breed (p = 0.018) and goat 
                              breed (p = 0.009) showed statistically significant 
                              association with the occurrence of subclinical 
                              mastitis in small dairy ruminants. However, there 
                              was no statistically significant association 
                              between risk factors such as Age (p = 0.779), 
                              parity (p = 0.201) and stage of lactation (p = 
                              0.952). Therefore, it can be concluded that 
                              mastitis is a significant disease in small 
                              ruminants that affects their productivity and 
                              measures need to be taken to control the disease. 
               
                              
                              Keywords: Bacteria; CMT test; Prevalence; 
                              Small ruminants; Subclinical mastitis 
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