Assessment on Peri-Urban Dairy Production System and Evaluation of Quality of Cows’ Raw Milk: A Case of Shambu, Fincha and Kombolcha Towns of Horro Guduru Wollega Zone, Ethiopia

A cross-sectional survey and raw milk laboratory analysis were conducted with the objectives of determining peri-urban dairy production system and quality of cow’s raw milk of Shambu, Fincha and Kombolcha towns of Horro Guduru Wollega zone. Ninty peri-urban householder dairy producers were selected randomly with 30 householde producers representing each town. For microbial study, thirty-(30) raw cow milk samples were collected from three towns. 50ml representative individual milk sample were taken aseptically from the bulk tank into sterile glass bottles within 15mins of milking, labeled and kept on ice for transportation to Holleta Dairy Microbiology laboratory. The means and standard deviations of total farmland, crop land and grazing land holdings of individual householder producers were 0.97±1.25, 0.87±1.18 and 0.86±0.23 respectively. The (mean and SD) age at first calving (AFC) for local cows was 46.22±12.15 where as it was 36.68±12.77 for cross breed cows. The (mean ± SD) AFC was significantly (P<0.05) shorter for cross breed heifers. Milk productivity in the study area was 1.52 and 7.21 litres/cow/day for local cows and for cross breed cows respectively. Dairy (mean ± SD) productivity difference among local and cross breed cows was highly significant (P<0.001) where cross breed cows yields were about five folds higher than local cows. The mean and standard deviation of standard plate count (SPC) was 9.73±0.49, 9.62±0.31 and 9.78±0.38 log10 cfu ml-1 for Shambu, Fincha and Kombolcha towns respectively. The overall mean and standard deviation coliform count found was 5.6±0.38, 5.7±0.09 and 5.4±0.33 log10 cfu ml-1 for Shambu, Fincha and Kombolcha towns respectively. There was significant difference (P<0.05) in coliform count of cows’ raw milk.Keywords: Bacterial load Ethiopia Horro Guduru Peri-Urban Dairying Raw mil