Gofwan et al Greener Journal of Agricultural Sciences Vol. 11(2), pp. 123-125, 2021 ISSN: 2276-7770 Copyright ©2021, the copyright of this article is retained by the author(s) https://gjournals.org/GJAS Six Months Assessment of Foetal Loss in Sheep and Goats at Shendam Slaughtering Slab, Plateau State, Nigeria Gofwan, PG; Dastu, AJ; Machido, H; Damter, SA; Magaji, ST; Guluwa, LY Department of Animal Health Technology, College of Agriculture, Garkawa, Plateau State, Nigeria. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article No.: 053121052 Type: Research So many factors are militating against sheep and goats development in Nigeria ranging from disease incidence, poor nutrition, poor infrastructure, poor policy and poor management practices. Of the poor management practices, indiscriminate slaughtering stands to be a major challenge. Therefore, this study was designed to carry a Six months assessment of foetal loss in sheep and goats at Shendam slaughtering slab, plateau state, Nigeria. Shendam town was purposefully chosen for this study because it was the Headquarters of Plateau South Senatorial District which has more influx of people that undertook political activities and with so many federal and state establishment as well as controlling business activities in the zone. A daily visit was made to the Shendam slaughter between 6:00am and 11:00am for the period of six months from June to December 2019 and the number of all sheep and goats slaughtered per day per month was recorded. Mean and percentage were used to analyze the data under three categories (males, dried females and pregnant females). The results showed that a total of 1441.00 (Mean: 205.86) and 2358.00 (mean: 336.86) sheep and goats were slaughtered respectively in the six months assessment. In regard to sheep, 51.83% were non pregnant females, 9.86% were pregnant and 38.31% were males; and in regard to goats, 66.42% were non pregnant females, 5.95% were pregnant and 27.63% were males. It may be concluded that 9.86% pregnant sheep and 5.95% pregnant goats were slaughtered monthly in this study area. Therefore, policy that prohibit indiscriminate slaughtering, and equipment veterinary services are recommended. Accepted: 31/05/2021 Published: 31/07/2021 *Corresponding Author Tomilola Makanju E-mail: davidsudik@ yahoo.com; gofwanphilip@ gmail.com Keywords: Foetal loss; goats; pregnancy; sheep; slaughtering; slaughtering slab Return to Content View [Full Article – PDF] [Full Article – HTML] [Full Article – EPUB] Post-Publication Peer-review Rundown View/get involved, click [Peer-review] REFERENCES Alhaji, N. B. (2011). Prevalence and economic implications of calf foetal wastage in an abattoir in north central Nigeria. Tropical Animal Health and Production 43: 587-590 Ardo, M. B., Lawal, H. and Aliyara, Y. H. (2013). Economic implication of bovine foetal wastage in Yola modern abattoir, Adamawa state, Nigeria. International Journal for Agro Veterinary and Medical Sciences7(2): 1- 10 Bokko, P. B. (2011). Pregnancy wastage in sheep and goat in the Sahel region of Nigeria. Nigerian Veterinary Journal 32: 120-126. Cadmus, S. I. B. and Adesokan, H. K. (2009). Bovine fetal wastage in southwestern Nigeria: A survey of some abattoirs. Tropical Animal Health and Production 42: 617 – 621. Kusiluka, L. J. S. and Sudi, F. F. (2003). Review of successes and failures of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia control strategies in Tanzania. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 59: 113 -123. Shiru, M. S. (2018). Trend analysis of droughts during crop growing seasons of Nigeria. Sustainability, 10(3): 871. Taiwo, B. B. A., Aluko, F. A. and Olufowobi, O. A. (2006). Reproductive wastage in some urban Abattoir in Ogun State. Proceedings of the 2006 Annual Nigerian Society for Animal Production Conference, 102 – 106. Cite this Article: Gofwan, PG; Dastu, AJ; Machido, H; Damter, SA; Magaji, ST; Guluwa, LY (2021). Six Months Assessment of Foetal Loss in Sheep and Goats at Shendam Slaughtering Slab, Plateau State, Nigeria. Greener Journal of Agricultural Sciences 11(2): 123-125.
