Resumen

BAZAN, Roberto; CERVANTES, Enrique; SALAS, Guillermo  y  SEGURA-CORREA, José C. Prevalence of Subclinical Mastitis in Dairy Goats in Michoacan, Mexico. Rev. Cient. (Maracaibo) [online]. 2009, vol.19, n.4, pp.334-338. ISSN 0798-2259.

The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of and to determine the effect of locality and herd size on subclinical mastitis in dairy goats in Michoacan, Mexico. Also the intracluster correlation coefficient and the design effect were calculated. All lactating does from 25 dairy herds from four localities of Tanhuato, Michoacan were sampled (n=1795 animals). In two localities the type of production system was of the semi-intensive type with grazing during the day and stalled during night and the other two belonged to the intensive type system. The detection of mastitis was carried out using the California mastitis test. Prevalences were estimated for each half and for animal. Mixed logistic regression models were was used to asses the association of locality (fixed) or herd size (fixed) to mastitis prevalence; herd identification was included as a random effect. Herd size was defined as the number of does (dry or lactating) in a particular herd and were grouped in three levels (<51; 51-150 and 151-520 does). There were not differences in the prevalences of mastitis between the right (18.6%) and left (16.7%) halves of the udder (P>0.05). The within herd prevalences ranged from 9.52 to 72.41% and the animal prevalence was 30.5% (548/1795). The locality of San Jose Vargas had the highest frequency of does with mastitis (55.48%) and Tinajas the Vargas de lowest (21.13%). The adjusted odd ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95CI) by locality were: 4.76 (2.86, 7.93), 1.20 (0.37, 3.86), 1.02 (0.19, 5.26) for San José Vargas, Cieneguitas and Rancho Nuevo, respectively, compared to the locality of Tinajas de Vargas. The OR and 95CI for the small and large herds, compared to the medium size herds were: 3.94 (0.85, 17.41) and 1.58 (0.99, 2.53), respectively. In conclusion mastitis prevalence is relatively high and it is affected by locality and herd size.

Palabras clave : Goats; mastitis; prevalence; Mexico.