A study on wound prevalence and its associated risk factors in donkeys in and around Shashemene town, Oromia Regional state, Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of wound and associated risk factors in equines in and around Shashemene town, Ethiopia. A total of 338 randomly selected working donkeys were physically examined out of which 199 (59%) were affected by wounds. In this study body condition was significantly associated (p<0.05) with wound prevalence while age and sex of donkeys were not associated as p-value was >0.05. This study also showed as floor and weight load carried by donkey was significant with a p-value 0.033 and 0.000 respectively. The mean weight carried by donkey was 519.08 kg with the maximum and minimum weight was 800 kg and 100 kg respectively. The highest wound distribution was found at back or withers of the donkeys with a prevalence of 24.3% and followed by shoulder, prescapular, chest, forelimb, neck and hind limb with 11.83%, 10.35%, 4.14%, 3.84%, 3.55%, 0.88% prevalence respectively. Variation in a wound type, abrasion, laceration, punctures and incises, was also significant with p-value 0.000 and 35.23%, 17.8%, 5.3% and 0.6% prevalence respectively and most of the wound was a moderate (21.89%) and followed by mild (18.93%) and severe (18.04%). The highest wound prevalence was caused by improper harness design and saddle (45.85%) followed by unknown cause (5.32%)nail piercing (0.3%), overloading and overworking (0.3%) and infectious disease (0.01%) of wound prevalence. Most of the owners take their donkeys to the nearby veterinary service (50.75%) out of 58.9% of prevalence and most of them were give to their donkeys a short term rest. Generally, the study has clearly indicated wound as a prevailing health and welfare problem of working donkeys in and around Shashemene town. Hence, implementing a comprehensive donkey health and welfare improvement program that focus towards the attitude of owners and awareness creation which was not limited by boundary between town and country side should be a priority for concerned stakeholder.