Ethno Veterinary Medicine and Common Diseases of Chicken Producers in Western Zone of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

A survey was conducted in three agro-ecologies of western zone of Tigray from June to September 2019 with the aim of identification of common poultry diseases and ethno veterinary practices. Multi stage sampling procedures were employed to select were das, sample kebeles and respondents in which three rural were das were selected by purposive sampling technique; stratified purposive techniques were employed to select nine sample kebeles, purposive random sampling techniques were used to select a total of 385 respondents and random sampling was employed to select chickens for ectoparasites identification. A pretested semi–structured questionnaire was employed to generate data. Descriptive statistics of frequency procedures of SPSS version 22 was used to analyze the survey data. Kruskal- Wall’s test option of Non-parametric test of SPSS 22 was employed to test proportion difference of each qualitative variable among the altitudes. Newcastle disease (27.79%), salmonella pullorum (25.45%), Coccidiosis (22.08%), fowl typhoid (10.95%), fowl cholera (7.53%), fowl pox (4.68%) and infectious Coryza (1.56%) were the major economically important infectious diseases that devastate village chicken production in the study area. A chicken mite (54.3%) was the most prevalent ectoparasites followed by lice (25.2%) and fleas (14.5%) while tick (6%) was the least prevalent ectoparasites. Forty-three medicinal plant species belonging to 30 families were identified and documented. Fabaceae and Rutaceae, the most dominant plant families, were represented by seven (16.28%) and four species (9.3%), respectively. Herbs (41.38%) and tree (47.4%) were the major growth forms of the medicinal plant species used for chicken diseases’ treatment and ectoparasites prevention, respectively. Leaf was the most frequently used plant parts for the preparation of remedies for chicken diseases’ treatment (41.38%) and ectoparasites’ prevention (57.9%). In conclusion, chicken producers used ethno veterinary medicine plant species for chicken health management in the study area. Further studies should be conducted to evaluate safety, toxicity, standardize dose and efficacy of the medicinal plant species. Moreover, species composition of the identified infectious diseases and parasites and its associated risk factors should be conducted.