Endale Teshome, Nejash Abdela and Abdi Hassan
Background: Ingestion of indigestible foreign bodies by ruminants is becoming a common worldwide problem which is the associated with a shortage of feed as well as increased pollution of grazing lands with indigestible materials.
Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2016 to January 2017 on 500 ruminants slaughtered at Asella municipal abattoir with the objective to determine the prevalence and type of indigestible foreign body in rumen and reticulum of ruminants in association with hypothetical risk factors. Simple random sampling technique was used for selecting the study animals which were ruminants brought from various localities to Asella municipal abattoir. Logistic regression was used to determine the association of risk factors with occurrence of for foreign body.
Results: Out of 500 ruminant examined (sheep 240, goats 60 and cattle 200) examined for the presence of indigestible foreign bodies, 109 (21.8%) animals were found positive for one or more indigestible foreign bodies in their rumen or reticulum. The prevalence of foreign bodies was significantly (p=0.000) higher in sheep (29.6%) (OR=2.581, CI=1.587, 4.196) and goat (16.7%) (OR=1.229, CI=0.559, 2.701) than cattle (14%). Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that the risk of foreign body ingestion was insignificantly higher in sheep than goats (OR=2.074, CI, 0.958, 4.486; p=0.064), in female shoat than male (OR=1.137, CI=0.558, 2.317, p=0.723). Significantly highest prevalence was observed in shoat greater than 3 years than shoat less than 2 years (OR=2.564, CI=1.160, 5.670, p=0. 031), in thin body conditioned small ruminants than good body conditioned (OR=3.361, CI=1.554, 9.100, p=0.002), in cattle above 7 years than cattle below 4 years (OR=7.57, CI=2.018, 28.445, p=0.000), in thin body conditioned cattle than good body conditioned (OR=10.347, CI=1.769, 60.520, p=0.013). Plastic was the most commonly encountered (56.9%) foreign material in all study animals, followed by cloth (13.8%), rope and mixed (9.2%), wire (6.4%) and nail (5.5%). In all species the proportion of indigestible foreign body in rumen (77.1%) were significantly higher than reticulum (22.9%) (OR=3.8365, CI=2.4086, 6.1111, p=0.001).
Conclusion: This study revealed ingestion of different types of indigestible foreign bodies by ruminants in the study area which may pose serious health problem for free grazing ruminant and negatively affect their overall productivity and production. This strongly calls for concerned stakeholders to design and implement appropriate waste disposal practice and thereby reduces the chance of ingesting foreign bodies.
PDFShare this article
Veterinary Science & Technology received 4472 citations as per Google Scholar report
