Muhammad Sohail

Risk Factors Associatede With Calf Mortality In Smallholder Dairy Farms In Per-Urban Area Of Lahore - 2013

A case control study was conducted to confirm association of hypothesized risk factors like age, sex, breed, colostrums ingestion time, feeding practices, season, housing, hygiene status of the farms and tick infestation. This study was conducted in Rakh Chandra dairy colony the biggest dairy colony situated in periphery of Lahore, rich with dairy animal. 10% sample size was taken of the total population consisting of young calves' cattle and buffaloes of 90 days age.
The overall mortality rate was (31.88%) while the crude mortality rate was found to be higher in the cattle calves that was of (35.76%) than in the buffalo calves (28%). Amongst all risk factors in the form of diseases and other health related conditions point of view calf diarrhea (54.7%; p=0.000) significantly associated with calf mortality and was found to be the leading cause of death followed by the respiratory diseases (28.5%) and other several risk factors were also seen to be associated with calf mortality. Ticks infestation was found to be (p=0.000: OR=13.618) strongly associated with calf mortality rate. While season was found to be associated (p=0.04: OR=1.21) with calf mortality rate in dairy farms.
The major cause of death recorded was diarrhea accounted 54.7% of total deaths. The higher mortality rate was recorded in the first month of age mostly in the 3rd week of life. Therefore it was concluded that age, sex, breed, tick infestation and colostrums were all associated with calf mortality. Further research work is needed to identify the individual magnitude of each risk factor associated with mortality in calves.



Department of Epidemiology & Public Health

1838,T


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