Prevalence of infertility in cattle and associated risk factors in Kayunga District

Abstract

Recent publications show that the prevalence of infertility in form of perinatal calf mortality, repeat breeding and abortion has increased in some farms and an increased proportion of this loss is not associated with risk factors in the post covid period. The objectives of this study were to determine the characteristics of farming pre and post covid, establish the prevalence of infertility (perinatal calf mortality, repeat breeding and abortion) and its associated risk factors in cattle herds. A total of 164 farms were studied within 5 subcounties in Kayunga district. Direct interview using semi-structured questionnaires and direct observations were used to collect data on farms. Data was entered into Microsoft Excel sheet and exported into SPSS version 16 for data analysis. The analysis showed significant changes in cattle farming post covid 19 pandemic such as reduction in the number of large scale farms, increase in the number of farms carrying communal grazing and artificial insemination. The analysis at 95% confidence level and 0.05 level of significance showed the prevalence of peri natal calf losses, abortion and repeat breeding was 20.09%, 10.27% and 11.98% respectively. Herd size, pasture improvement, management system used, response time to artificial insemination calls, period of time a bull stays on the farm, age of bulls and supervison of hand mating had a significant effect on occurrence of repeat breeding( p0.05) between occurrence of abortion and breeding method used, type of management system, age of bulls, age at which calves are weaned, pasture improvement and common diseases like ECF, worm infestation and FMD. In conclusion, the prevalenceof infertility was high to levels believed to cause low productivity and losses in cattle farming through mainly lowering both milk production and availability of replacement stock. It is therefore, recommended that improved calf management practices, good breeding practices and timely health management in the study areas would significantly reduce perinatal calf losses, abortions and repeat breeding