The Occurrence of Bovine Mastitis and Associated Risk Factors in and Around Addis Ababa, Central Ethiopia

3 Abstract: A cross-sectional study was done to estimate the prevalence and associated risk factors of bovine mastitis from November, 2009 to June, 2010 in Addis Ababa veterinary clinics. Three hundred forty six lactating cows from one commercial and 14 household were included in the study. These 346 lactating cows were subjected to California mastitis test (CMT), 169(48.8%) were mastitis positive, of which 131(37.9%) were sub-clinically affected and 38(10.9%) were clinically affected signifying the importance of sub-clinical case. California mastitis test (CMT) was conducted on milk samples from individual quarters of 1338 quarters examined for prevalence of clinical mastitis (CM), non-functional or blocked quarters and sub clinical mastitis and revealed that 3.4, 3.5 and 47.8%, respectively. Sub-clinical mastitis had highest relative occurrence on cow basis, prevalence of sub clinical mastitis was 131(37.9%) and was higher in cross bred 113(42.8%) than with that of zebu 18 (21.9%), significantly more sub clinical mastitis occurred in parity two and above 91 (41.4%) than those in first parity 40 (31.7%). Therefore, it was concluded that sub clinical mastitis is highly and widely prevalent than clinical mastitis. As it is economically damaging, the need to establish diagnostic facility to be able to early detect and screen large number of samples in emphasized and further work on identification of causative agent is recommended.