Cross-sectional study on the prevalence and risk factors for major skin diseases of cattle in Hawassa city, Southern Ethiopia

A cross-sectional study was conducted on the major skin diseases of cattle in Hawassa city with the objectives of estimating the prevalence and assessing the effect of different risk factors in the occurrence of these skin diseases in the study area. The study was conducted with thorough physical examination of cattle and laboratory examination of samples collected from all encountered cases. Out of 662 cattle examined for the presence of skin diseases, 146(22.05%) cattle had different skin diseases, namely ring worm (6.2%), lice infestation (6%), tick infestation (5.3%), wart (4.4%), lumpy skin disease (0.6%), mange mites (0.3%) and dermatophilosis (0.2%).There was a significantly higher (p<0.001) prevalence of skin diseases in young (38.5%) than the old (10.3%) animals. However, the other considered risk factors namely; sex, origin and management were not statistically associated with the occurrence of skin diseases. In general, unless feasible control measures are timely implemented the encountered skin diseases can have varied and adverse effect on cattle production, tanning industry and health of the public and concomitantly pose huge economic loss. Key words: Skin diseases, ring worm, ectoparasites, wart, risk factors, cattle, Hawassa.