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Background. Bovine rotavirus (BRV) and bovine coronavirus (BCoV) are the most common viral agents in neonatal calf diarrhea and result in serious economic consequences. The aim of the study was to determine the epidemiology of those viruses in randomly selected dairy farms of Addis Ababa. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2018 to April 2019 using a probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling technique. A total of 110 calves, less than 30 days of age, from 57 dairy herds were involved in the study. Associated factors of herds and calves were collected using semistructured interviews from farm owners and through physical observation of selected calves. Fecal samples were collected and analyzed using the sandwich ELISA method. Data generated from both semistructured interviews and laboratory investigation were analyzed using STATA_MP version 15. Results. From the total 110 calves, 42 (38.18%) had diarrhea during the survey. The prevalence of bovine rotavirus and coronavirus was 3.64% (4/110) and 0.91% (1/110), respectively. Diarrhea, feeding colostrum timing, and sex of the neonatal calves had statistically significant association with bovine rotavirus infection ( p < 0.05 ). All rotavirus-positive neonatal calves were identified in small scale dairy farms and in dairy farms that reported mortality though they lack statistically significant association. Only one coronavirus case was detected among the neonatal calves. The case was identified among small scale herds and in a herd with diarrheal cases. The sex of the coronavirus calf was female, diarrheic, and among 11-20 days old. Conclusion. The prevalence of rotavirus and coronavirus infections in neonatal calves was seldom in dairy farms of the study area. Rotavirus was more common than coronavirus, and further studies should be initiated on other (infectious and noninfectious) causes of neonatal calf diarrhea in the area.

A cross sectional study was conducted in small ruminants kept under extensive management system in and around Alage Agricultural Technical Vocational Educational and Training (ATVET) College from October to May, 2018/19. The objectives were set to estimate the prevalence and types of recovered parasites at genus level and assessment of their association with the animal risk factors. A total of 310 randomly collected fecal samples of small ruminants (206 goats and 104 sheep) were examined by simple floatation. In the study area, the overall prevalence of GIT nematodes in small ruminants was 79.68% (247/310). Species specific prevalence of GIT nematode was 78.2% (161/206) and 82.7% (86/104), goats and sheep, respectively. The result showed the existence of single as well as mixed parasitic infections. Accordingly, higher proportion of Haemonchus in sheep (33.72%) and Trichostrongylus in goats (31.1%) represent single infections while Haemonchus with Trichostrongylus in sheep (5.8%), and Trichostrongylus with Oesophagostomum in goats (4.35%) weremixed parasitic infections. Conversely, Bunostomum and Trichuris appeared to be the lowestin proportions in goats (3.73%) and sheep (2.33%) as a single infection whereas Haemonchus with Bunostomum in goats (0.62%) and Trichostrongylus with Bunostomum in sheep (1.2%), as mixed parasitic infections. Analysis of risk factors (species, age, sex and body condition score) revealed that only sex and BCS had significant association with occurrence of parasitic infection (p < 0.05).. Accordingly, females and those with poor BCS were more likely to have parasitic burden than others (p< 0.05). However, rest of risk factors (species and age group) had no statistical association (p>0.05) for parasitic infection. In general, the occurrences of high prevalence of nematodes in the study area suggest that GI nematodes are major constraints for production and productivity of small ruminants. Therefore, application of strategic control measures is recommended to reduce the impact of nematodes in ruminants in the current area.

Ethiopian dairy farming has many constraints including disease and lack of appropriate biosecurity measures. With this into consideration, a cross-sectional survey was carried out from November 2021 to April 2022 to determine the animal health biosecurity status of dairy farms and investigate the sociodemographic characteristics of livestock keepers on dairy farm management. A face-to-face questionnaire survey using an online application was used to collect data. The interview involved a total of 380 dairy farms located in six towns in central Ethiopia. The results showed that out of the surveyed farms, 97.6% missed footbaths at their gate points, 87.4% lacked isolation areas for either sick or newly introduced cattle, and 83.4% did not check the health status or quarantine newly introduced cattle. Furthermore, written formal record-keepings on animal health was uncommon, except for a few farms (7.9%). However, nearly all of the respondents (97.9%) gave medical treatments for sick cattle, and 57.1% of them vaccinated their herds regularly during the past 12 months before the survey. Hygienic aspects of the farms showed that 77.4% of the dairy farms appeared to clean the barn on a daily basis. However, 53.2% of respondents did not utilize personal protective equipment while cleaning their farms. A quarter of the dairy farmer (25.8%) avoided mixing their cattle with other herds, and 32.9% of them have implemented isolation of sick animals. In general, the animal health biosecurity assessment of the farms showed that most of the dairy farms (79.5%) earned unacceptable biosecurity levels (score of ≤ 50%), whereas the remaining 20.5% of dairy farms had received a score of &gt;50% (“acceptable level”). The gender of dairy farmers (χ2 value = 7.61; p = 0.006), education level (χ2 value = 12.04; p = 0.007), dairy farm ownership (χ2 value = 41.6; p &lt; 0.001), training on dairy farm management (χ2 value = 37.1; p &lt; 0.001), towns (χ2 value = 31.69; p &lt; 0.001), farm size (χ2 value = 7.7; p = 0.006), and herd size (χ2 value = 28.2; p &lt; 0.001) showed a significant statistical association with biosecurity status. Finally, the study revealed that the level of biosecurity adoption of dairy farms in central Ethiopia is mostly unsatisfactory and calls for designing and implementing intervention measures toward improved animal health in dairy farms and further public health.