Prevalence of pneumonia among slaughtered cattle, goats and sheep in Maiduguri abattoir, Maiduguri, Nigeria

Retrospective study on bovine, ovine and caprine pneumonia was conducted over a five-year period (2000-2004). Data were collected from the Maiduguri metropolitan abattoir and a total of 173,824 cattle, 270,339 goats and 12,587 sheep were examined at post-mortem for pneumonic lesions. Of these, 54%, 52% and 53% were males while 46%, 48% and 47% were females for the species respectively. Differences were not observed in the slaughter figures among species (p>0.05). A total of 361 cattle, 253 goats and 149 sheep had pneumonia with overall prevalence rates of 0.21%, 0.09% and 0.12% respectively. The data revealed that cattle had the highest number of cases (133) in 2004 while goats had the least (7 cases) in the same year. Over the years, the incidence of pneumonia amongst species was relatively unstable but not significant statistically (p>0.05). The low prevalence recorded in this study may be due to subclinical disease, activities of the butchers such as hiding the affected lungs from meat inspectors, slaughtering of animals outside the abattoir particularly during festive seasons and the use of antibiotics in feeds by farmers to curtail bacterial infections. Keywords :Pneumonia, cattle, goats, sheep, abattoir, Maiduguri, Nigeria Sahel Journal of Veterinary Science Vol. 6 (1) 2007: pp. 5-8