Prevalence of ruminal and reticular foreign bodies in cattle slaughtered at Jimma Municipal Abattoir, south western Ethiopia

A cross-sectional study was conducted from November, 2015 to April, 2016 at Jimma municipal Abattoir, Oromia Regional State, with the objectives of to assess the prevalence of rumen and reticulum foreign bodies, identify types of foreign bodies and associated risk factors for the occurrences of foreign bodies. Both antemortem and postmortem examinations were employed to examine the live animal and for the recovery of foreign bodies from rumen and reticulum after slaughter, respectively. The study animals were selected by using simple random sampling. From the total of 384 local male animals examined, 47(12.23%) were found positive for the occurrence of foreign bodies in rumen and reticulum. From these plastics (5.5%), cloth with rope (2.9%), wire with cloth (1.8%), wire (1.0%), wire with rope (0.5%) and nail (0.5%) were the positive cases, respectively. Prevalence of foreign bodies occurrence recorded in age groups were 7.93%, 11.56% and 20.75% in young, adult and old, respectively with highly statistically significant difference (P>0.05). The prevalence rate recorded within body condition scores were 15%, 10.20% and 14.06% for poor, medium and good body condition, respectively with non-significant difference in prevalence within body condition scores (P>0.05). The highest frequencies of foreign bodies observed in cattle originated from Gomma district (63.8%) while the lowest from Seka district (4.2%). From the total prevalence of 47(12.23%), 72.3%, 12.7% and 14.8% were observed from rumen, reticulum and both rumen and reticulum, respectively. And rumen harbored mostly plastic materials while reticulum was the major site for the retention of metallic objects. It is concluded that, detection of the foreign bodies in forestomach suggested as health risk to ruminants and contributes a lot for reduced production. Therefore, appropriate solid waste disposal system need to implement in the study area to prevent health risk of ruminants and also to protect the environment.Keywords: Abattoir, Cloth, Cross-sectional study, Metals, Plastic, Risk factors, Rope, Wir