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Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

DOI

10.3906/vet-2001-42

Abstract

Subclinical mastitis (SCM) is a major and silent problem of public health concern. It causes higher economic losses with no initial visible changes in the appearance of milk or udder. Subclinically affected animals always remain a continuous source of infection. Most of the clinical mastitis (CM) cases start as subclinical; hence controlling SCM is the best way to reduce the incidence of diseases. A crosssectional study was carried out during 2018?19 in six districts from different agroclimatic zones of Punjab, India to describe awareness about various technologies and its adoption to diagnose SCM. The multistage random technique was used to select dairy farmers (n = 600). A personal interview technique with the pretested schedule was used to collect information after obtaining participation consent. Around 13% of respondents were aware of SCM diagnosis technologies and very few (6.67%) were implementing the same at their farms. Family size (Odds Ratio - OR 2.44), dairy income (OR 13.67), landholding (OR 2.13), herd size (OR 6.45) and extension contacts are likely to affect the probability of SCM diagnosis adoption. A significant difference (P < 0.01) was seen on overall CM incidence at farms level (38.33%), among which 10.00% was on technology adopter farms. Five percent of adopter farms had no incidence of disease. From 600 dairy farms, 3179 dairy animals were exposed and 378 were suffered from CM (12.05%). A significant difference (P < 0.01) was found for incidence rate, number of animals affected and exposed to CM among three categories of farms such as 1) technology adopters with no incidence (n = 17), 2) technology adopters with incidence (n = 23), and 3) technology nonadopters with incidence (n = 207). The study confirmed the potential and direct role of SCM diagnosis on reducing CM incidence, however poor awareness coupled with financial status may be the reason limiting adoption, which can be accelerated through comprehensive extension approach for producing clean milk to society.

Keywords

Awareness, dairy farmers, Punjab, SCM diagnosis, technology adoption

First Page

845

Last Page

852

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