| dc.description.abstract | Livestock has been the backbone for sustainability of livelihood in Ugandans for centuries. In the recent years, cattle keeping has been on a rampant increase, geared by a high demand of cattle products by the growing population. Unfortunately, with the increasing cattle per-capita, production has far not reached the average due to different constraints; feed shortage and environmental contamination among many others. Environmental contamination exposes cattle and other ruminants to plastics, nails, mentioned but a few. On ingestion, these materials are undigested and of a great health and economic problems to famers, not forgetting consumers of animal products who are at a high risk of being exposed to the chemicals leached from those materials. In this study, we assessed the magnitude of exposure of foreign objects, common foreign objects and their effects in cattle slaughtered at Kampala city abattoir, Uganda. It was found that out of 385 cattle, 93 (24.16%) were positive to IFB with plastic bags occurring with (25%, n=132), sacs (18.02%), mosquito nets (14.4%), cloth (14.4%, n=133) and many others. Mostly IFB occurred as mixture of kinds with in a given animal. The maximum weight of foreign bodies detected in a single cow was 9.6kg and the least weighing below 0.1kg. Out of the 93 positive cases, 6 (6.5%) cows were found with metallic. Cattle from Soroti market (east and northern Uganda) had a high frequency of occurrence of IFB at (57%, n=133), followed by, Gomba market (central Uganda) (29%) and the least being 19% in cattle from Mbarara & Kyankwanzi and a P-value >0.05. Amongst cattle breeds, Friesian crosses had the highest percentage of positive cases (32.1%, n=93), followed by Zebu (30.6%, n=93), followed by mixed breeds (14.9%) and then Ankole long horned cattle from farmlands and ranches (9.7%) and a P-value >0.5. There was a low negative significant relationship between the body condition score of cattle and the weights of IFB (r = -0.4619, P< 0.05). Animals below a BCS of 3/5 (thin/poor) were found mostly affected with indigestible foreign bodies (32%), followed by BCS 3/5 (27%) and the least affected being fat animals above 3/5 BCS (10.5%) and a P-value <0.05. Production efficiency in livestock is still lacking due to increasing environmental contamination. Ban of usage of plastic bags and proper disposal of all wastes on grazing lands would reduce the risk of exposure of indigestible foreign objects and their effects in cattle. | en_US |
