Abstract:
Mastitis in bovine has been recognized as one of the most costly diseases in the world affecting dairy cattle. The disease causes major economic losses for example discarding off large quantities of milk as it cannot be consumed by human beings either due to drug residues in it or lowered quality due to presence of flakes or blood, reduced milk yield, culling of the previously high milk producing cows with chronic mastitis and high treatment costs due to the repeated treatment. This has lowered the production efficiency of many farms due to increased production costs. Objective of the study were to establish prevalence of sub clinical mastitis at the quarter level, to isolate staphylococcus aureus as one of the contagious etiological agents from mastitis milk samples and to determine the risk factors that predispose milk animals to mastitis. A cross sectional study design was followed to address the objectives of the study. A total of 130 lactating cows were selected using simple random and systematic sampling techniques. Thorough clinical examination and California mastitis test (CMT) and a questionnaire were deployed. The result of the study shows that 109/130 (83.5%) cows had mastitis and of these 23 (18.5%) cows had clinical mastitis and 86(68.5%) cows had the sub clinical mastitis. Prevalence of SCM at the quarter level were RF 40(47.6), LF 41(48.8), and RH 34 (41). A total prevalence 52.3% of S. aureus was isolated from 109 from mastitis positive samples. Risk factors including grazing system, type of floor and milking frequency had significant difference to mastitis. The study shows that farmers have les information concerning SCM due to lack of diagnostic equipment’s and reagents. The study has also confirmed that S. aureus is an important cause of mastitis which was isolated from more than half of the mastitic cows. The study has indicated the complexity of the disease due to its association with different risk factors (milking frequency, type of floor and grazing systems). This causes a great loss of productivity, quality and quality of milk yield, and animals due to culling. This should have to be managed before it leads to economic crises.
