Asian Journal of Research in Animal and Veterinary Sciences

Aim of this paper is to explore the potential of buffalo husbandry for providing sustainable livelihood to small farmers in the developing countries. The world population of 200 million buffaloes has been distributed over 40 countries, but 97 percent population is confined to Asia and India with 109 million buffaloes hosting 57 percent of the total population. These include swamp buffaloes, which are used for meat and draught purposes and river buffaloes which are mainly maintained for milk production. Buffalo is hardier than cattle because of its ability to digest coarse fibre but susceptible to high temperature. India is the highest buffalo milk producer in the world with over 20 breeds of river buffaloes. Among these, Murrah and Jaffarabadi are popular because of high milk yield. Introduction of breeding services using frozen semen enabled small farmers owning nondescript buffaloes, to produce superior progeny and enhance the productivity of buffaloes. With genetic improvement, health care, proper feeding and establishment of marketing network, it should be possible to enhance the milk and meat production of buffaloes in the future. There is also scope to promote buffalo husbandry for milk production in other developing countries.

Aim: The study was carried out to evaluate the effect of routine administration of fluoroquinolones on performance, haematology, and serum biochemistry indices of Arbor Acre broiler chickens.

Study Design: The experiment employed a completely randomized design; all data generated were subjected to analysis of variance, P=0.05.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out at the Teaching and Research Farm, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, between February and March, 2014.

Methodology: One hundred and eighty unsexed one-day old Arbor Acres broiler chicks were used in a 48-day study. Broiler chicks were distributed into four experimental treatments viz; control, enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin. Birds were administered with 10 mg/kg body weight of the selected fluoroquinolones for 3 days on week 2, 4, and 6. On Day 39, 3 birds per treatment were randomly selected and blood collection was done through jugular puncture. Selected haematological and serum biochemistry parameters were analyzed to determine the health status of the birds. Growth Performance of the experimental birds were evaluated on day 48.

Results: Performance results of the experimental birds showed significant differences (P≤0.05) for daily weight gain, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio. The group supplemented with ciprofloxacin had the best performance. Selected fluoroquinolones had no influence on haematological indices evaluated. Serum indices showed significant (P≤0.05) differences for Aspartate Amino Tranferase (AST) among the treatments. Control had the highest mean value for AST (85.32±5.12 I.U/L) compared to other treatments.

Conclusion: The results obtained in this study indicated that routine administration of fluoroquinolones had effect on some performance and health status indices of Abor Acres chickens when compared with the control.

Human and animal trypanosomiasis are threats to both animal and human health in Sub-Saharan Africa. Numerous integrated vector control programs in Lambwe Valley foci have not been in tandem with insights aimed at investigating the prevalence trends besides assessing possible trypanotolerance in cattle. The cross-sectional survey enlisted human and cattle subjects for examination. Prevalence of trypanosomiasis in animal subjects was 9.2%. Blood parameters; white blood cells, lymphocytes and granulocytes were significantly lower among the parasitaemic as compared to the aparasitaemic animals except for monocyte proportions whereas, Red blood cells indices were depressed in trypanosomiasis. Viewed together, the presented findings point to animal trypanosomiasis cases in Lambwe Valley with chronic anemia and depressed white blood cell levels persisting as the most common features of the disease. High throughput molecular-based techniques currently not accessible should be incorporated into national and regional governance control programs as well as monitoring and evaluation strategies and this should be applied at both veterinary and clinical settings. Such efforts will go a long way in operationalization of modern advanced practices while mitigating likely clinical and veterinary challenge around accurate cases profiling and management based on the current widely available and applied prognosis/diagnostic strategies.

Aims: To compare, on an experimental basis, the respective relevance of two mathematical models estimating the rumen fermentation parameters of some plant and animal protein sources: the “exponential” model by Ørskov & McDonald (EXP) and the” sigmoid” model by France et al. (FRC).

Study Design: The study was conducted at the University of Ardebil (Iran) between 2014 and 2016. In order to conduct the experimental part of the study, sources of plant protein (soybean meal, rapeseed meal and cottonseed meal) and sources of animal protein (poultry offal meal, fish meal and blood meal) were obtained from the agricultural sector and the local slaughterhouse.

Methodology: Gas production was measured for 6 feeding contents in 3 repeats at 3 separate periods. The volume of gas produced after 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 24, 36, 48 and 72 hours incubation was measured and checked against two models estimating gas production parameters and ruminal fermentation kinetics.

Results: The amounts of gas production potential and the rate constant gas production according to both models, EXP and FRC, was not significantly different. However, the two models differ significantly regarding the length of the lag phase (T lag) which is significantly longer in the model EXP, than in the model FRC; due to model EXP substantially overestimating the actual time-lags.

Conclusion: The sigmoid model FRC, proposed by France et al., appears providing more relevant estimates than does the exponential model EXP by Ørskov & McDonald, at least regarding the duration of the lag phase before starting of the fermentation process. Accordingly, it seems that the sigmoid FRC model should be preferred over the exponential EPXP model.

This paper evaluated some ethno-veterinary practices among cattle herders in Zuru, Kebbi State, Nigeria. One hundred and ten (110) questionnaires were used purposively to generate data on demographic information, cattle ownership, knowledge of ethno-veterinary practices, ethno-botanical plants of veterinary importance and their uses in treating various cattle diseases.  The study covers only four villages in the study area because of the high density of cattle herders. The results revealed that cattle herding is a sole activity of males with majority (41.82%) fallen between the age group of 41-50 years old, and 79.09% having informal education while 74.55% of them have more than 11 households. Among the respondents, (47.27%), have 21-30 heads of cattle, majority (92.73%) of them are aware of ethno-veterinary practices and 89.09% adopt the of various ethno-botanical practices in treating cattle diseases. The knowledge of ethno-veterinary practice and the use of available ethno-botanical plants help the respondents to treat 20.11% cases of dermatophylosis, 18.99% parasitic infections 16.95% Contagious Bovine Pleuro-pneumonia, 15.83% trypanasomiasis and 16.76% diarrhea respectively in the study area. The existence of ethno-veterinary knowledge and practices contributes immensely to the development of livestock sub sector in the study area. This necessitates proper identification and conservation of ethno-botanical plants of veterinary importance for improved animal health care system in the study area.