Reproductive status of cows slaughtered at the Ngaoundere Municipal Slaughter House and factors responsible for potential losses in herd productivity

Abstract

The reproductive status (RS) of 2,103 cows slaughtered at the Ngaoundere Municipal Slaughter House (NMSH) in view of highlighting potential losses resulting from the slaughtering of pregnant cows (PC) were assessed. Concurrently, 390 of the cows evaluated for RS were randomly selected for a detailed identification of the possible causes of infertility from the gross reproductive pathologies (GRP) observed in the reproductive tract. Data were collected between July and December, 2004 and analyzed using SAS program (1991). Of a sample of 2,426 animals slaughtered, 2,103 (86.6%) were cows. The prevalence of PC slaughtered was 37.3%. Majority (83%) of the cows slaughtered were below 9 years of age. The PC slaughtered (7.5 years) were significantly (p<0.001) older than that of the non PC (6.9 years). Thirty-three percent of the slaughtered cows were infertile. The common GRP observed were ovarian inactivity (24.8%), metritis (5.1%) and vagino-metritis (0.8%). Although the prevalence of metritis was found very low, it may be useful to identify its causes together with those of ovarian inactivity which were the principal factors that justify the slaughter of some cows below 9 years in the Region. However, there is need to check for pregnancy in all cows before slaughtering in all national abattoirs to minimise economic losses related to pregnancy losses and to contribute to the growth of the cattle industry.