Prevalence of Ovine Haemonchosis in Wukro, Ethiopia

Background.Haemonchosiscaused byHaemonchus contortusis a predominant, highly pathogenic, and economically important disease of sheep and goats.Objective. Assessing the prevalence ofHaemonchusparasite and its associated risk factors in sheep slaughtered at different restaurants of Wukro.Methods. Cross-sectional study using random sampling from November 2013 to April 2014 in a total of 384 sheep was conducted and SPSS version 20 software using descriptive statistics was used for data analysis andP<0.05was considered significant.Result. The overall prevalence ofHaemonchus contortuswas 40.9% (n=157). The prevalence in medium body condition 27.3% (n=105) varies significantly from that of good body condition 13.5% (n=52) (P<0.05). Moreover, there was significant variation (P<0.05) in the prevalence in young and adult sheep with rates of 21.9% (n=84) and 19% (n=73), respectively. At the same time, there is significant variation (P<0.05) in male and female sheep with prevalence of 29.7% (n=114) and 11.2% (n=43), respectively. The prevalence of 25.3% (n=97) in sheep that originated from Negash compared to Wukro and Agulae showed no significant variation (P>0.05).Conclusion. The current finding revealed that significant numbers of sheep were affected by the parasites. Hence strategic deworming with good husbandry practice should be implemented.