CAUSES OF MORTALITY OF SHEEP IN IBADAN, NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF SHEEP AND GOAT UNIT OF IBADAN DAIRY FARM

Résumé

This study was carried out in an attempt to determine the causes of mortality in sheep in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria. The result showed  the most common causes of mortality were pneumonia (19.5%), diarrhoea (18.5%) lielminthiasis (17.0%), starvation (9.5%) and Animals enterotoxaemia (8.7%). 65.7% of all the 811 deaths recorded occurred during the first six months of life indicating that lambs were more susceptible to infections than adult sheep deaths occurred among the females than male sheep. Most deaths occurred during the dry. season months of December to February. It seemed that the constraint on sheep productivity imposed by disease can be greatly ameliorated by a combination of improvement of dry season feeding and the prevention of the three major diseases that were together responsible for 55% of all deaths.