Occurrence of bovine mastitis and isolation of Staphyloccocus species from fresh cow milk in settled Fulani herds in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

A study was conducted on 360 dairy cows (1440 quarters) to determine the prevalence of mastitis by California Mastitis Test (CMT) and Staphylococci in settled Fulani herds in Kaduna State, Nigeria. The prevalence of mastitis at cow level was 26.9% (97/360) and out of which 23.9% (86/360) and 3.1% (11/360) were subclinical mastitis and clinical mastitis respectively. The prevalence at quarter level was 21.7% (312/1440), and out of which 6.5% (28/1440) was clinical mastitis and 19.7% (284/1440) was subclinical mastitis respectively. Statistical analysis showed that there was significant difference in the occurrence of mastitis among the age group (P<0.05). The prevalence at quarter level was 25.2% (157/624) in adult cows, 20.2% (97/480) in young adults and 17.3% (58/336) in old cows. Similar pattern of occurrence was recorded for both clinical and subclinical mastitis as the adults had 21.8% and 3.4 %, young adults had 19.8% and 0.4% and old cows had 15.8% and 1.5% respectively. The CMT scores showed that 55 (64.0%) of the milk samples had a score of 1+, 26 (30.2%) had a score of 2+, 3 (3.5) had a score of 3+ while only 2 (2.3%) had a score of “Trace”. Sixty seven (69.1%) of the samples that were positive for CMT were found to be culture positive and out of which 56.7% (55/97) were S. aureus and 12.3% (12/97) were coagulase-negative staphylococci (CONS). The high prevalence of both clinical and subclinical mastitis coupled with the isolation of S. aureus and CONS are of great public health concern and requires strict control and preventive measures. The study recommends standards hygienic measures during milking and culling of infected cows to stop the spread of pathogens to uninfected cows.

Keywords: mastitis, prevalence, Cow milk, Staphylococcus spp, settled Fulani herds, Kaduna State