FARMERS’ KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES OF MASTITIS IN DAIRY COWS AT SELECTED AREAS OF BANGLADESH

The research work was designed to assess farmers’ knowledge, attitude and practices about bovine mastitis. The data were collected by using structured questionnaire through face to face interview techniques among the 65 dairy farmers of Dhaka, Mymensingh, and Gazipur. Disproportionate stratified random sampling was used to select the farmers based on study areas. Most of the studied farms are small (75.4%) in the studied area, only a few (10.8%) farms were large in Dhaka. In Gazipur and Mymensingh almost (86.2%) firms were small and rest of (13.8%) was medium. According to farmer’s knowledge, major cause of mastitis was microorganisms (46.15%), but 20% farmer reported that it is due to injury and 27.69% farmer don’t know the causes of the mastitis. Most of the farmers (87.7%) think that the source of infection is unhygienic floor, but others have no clear conception about it. Before milking only 23.10% farmers’ wash the whole udder where 58.5% used single towel. About 76.9% farmers have no knowledge of screening mastitis and only 9.2% of total farmers performed regular mastitis checking. Among the farmers, 55.4% are used antiseptic solution during washing the floor and others wash their floor only by water. Highest number of farmer use Tube well water (44.6%) for daily management of their farms. Most of the farmer takes suggestions from village doctor or pharmaceutical representative (64.62%) for maintaining the diseases condition. This study recommends that identification of factors associated with sub-clinical mastitis will help to take necessary steps to reduce the prevalence of sub-clinical mastitis. The most effective way to control sub-clinical mastitis is to take preventive measures such as regular cleaning of the floor, keeping the udder clean, milkman's cleanliness, and dry cow therapy especially in high yielding dairy cows.