A 13-year retrospective study of the beef and dairy cattle losses at Neudamm farm in the Khomas region of Namibia

Abstract EN

This study was carried out to get an appraisal of the losses occasioned by apparently high levels stock mortality at Neudamm Campus Farm, University of Namibia.

Losses of beef cattle (Afrikaner, Simmental and Sanga/Nguni) and dairy cattle (Friesian) were studied from July 2003 to December 2015.

A total of 106 animals worth US$55 263.12 and representing 3.5% of the animals at risk were lost during this period.

In the years 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014 the cattle losses were more than 1.5% whereas in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2015 the losses were 1.0-1.5%.

The lowest losses (<1.0%) occurred in 2003 and 2009.

Since 2005, overall cattle losses rapidly increased until 2010 followed by a gradual decrease till 2015.

Though there was no significant difference in the overall losses between male (3.4%) and female animals (3.8%) during the study period (P>0.05), the female losses were significantly higher than the male losses (P<0.05) in all the years except 2011 during which there was no significant difference between male and female losses (P>0.05).

There were significantly more mature animals lost from 2003 to 2009 and from 2013 to 2014 (P<0.05).

There was no significant difference in the mature and immature losses in 2012 (P>0.05).

The losses in immature cattle was higher than those of mature cattle in 2010, 2011 and 2015 (P<0.05).

The proportions of animals lost due to predation, unknown causes, dystocia, infections, trauma, old age, plant intoxication and traumatic reticulo-peritonitis were 29.2%, 29.2%, 14.2%, 11.3%, 9.4%, 4.7%, 0.9% and 0.9%, respectively.

For the duration under study, the proportional of losses in January, February, April, November and December were significantly higher than those of the rest of the months (P<0.05).