Disease management and biosecurity measures of small-scale commercial poultry farms in and around Debre Markos, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

This cross-sectional study was carried out to assess disease management and biosecurity measures of small scale commercial poultry farms by structured questionnaire through personal interview. The data was analysed by χ2 and t-test, one way analysis of variance and general linear model by SPSS software. The result shown that, only 38.8% of the producers’ suspects Coccidiosis was the frequently occurred disease in the farm. Some of the producers (30.6%) suspect the cause of the disease might be environmental problem, 24.5% management problem, and 12.2% both environment and management. The most leading symptoms of diseases that occurred in the study area were ruffled feather (15.5%), loss of appetite (15.1%), depression (12.6%), diarrhoea (9.7%), and others. About 79.6% of the farms had close relation with the veterinarian and consult about disease management. Only 12.2% of the farms vaccinate NCD, 49% NCD and Gumboro, 28.6% NCD, Gumboro and fowlbox and the rest 10.1% vaccinate their chicks for NCD, Gumboro, fowlbox, Fowl cholera/typhoid and Marix disease. Biosecurity measures were very crucial in the poultry farms. About 63.3% of the producers dressed on protective cloth (tuta), only 8.2% of the producers wear hand gloves. About 77.6% of the producers used the foot path in front of their farm entrance. Prevention and treatments were the major mechanisms for controlling measure of disease and the mortality percentage of chicks was only 4.7%. From this study, it could be concluded that better disease management and biosecurity measures are required to attain better poultry production Key words: Biosecurity, disease, mortality rate, symptoms, vaccination.