Ethnobotanical Knowledge of Pastoral Community for Treating Livestock Diseases in Shinle Zone, Somali Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Modern livestock health care is still at its lowest stage in Ethiopia and most modern veterinary services like drugs and veterinary professionals are not accessible and affordable to the majority of pastoral farmers. As a result, they are heavily relying on their traditional knowledge and practices on locally available materials mainly plants in the management of animal diseases. However, this traditional knowledge has not yet been well documented and analyzed. Therefore, this study was carried to identify medicinal plants used as ethno-veterinary to manage animal diseases and examined factors that threatens ethno-veterinary in Pastoral Community of Shinle Districts. Survey was conducted to gather information from 180 households on indigenous knowledge using a semi-structured questionnaire and filed guided observations. A total of thirty-one plant species belonging to eighteen families used against fourteen types of livestock health problems were collected and identified. Majority of plant species fall under Fabaceae (22.5%) and Euphorbiaceae (16.1%) family that are largely shrubs. The most commonly used plant parts were roots (35.5%) followed by leaves (25.8%). Remedy preparation was mainly through chop and soak in concoction of water and salt. Oral, topical and nasal route were the common mode of administration with no standardized dosing and treatment duration. The principal threats of medicinal plants were invasive plants, drought, over grazing, agricultural activity and firewood collection. Endogenous knowledge on ethno-veterinary medicinal plants was accepted orally from healer's forefathers and transmitted similarly. Identified medicinal plants were not on sale in the local markets. Awareness should raise and ethno-veterinary medicine should integrate in to livestock extension delivery systems for the need to exploit the possibility of discovering more medicinally viable plants. Further studies needed under controlled conditions on the efficacy and veterinary properties of such plant products and livestock disease treatments.