A cross-sectional study on the association between farmers’ awareness and compliance on herd health program among five selected dairy cattle farms in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan states, Malaysia

Faez Firdaus Jesse Abdullah; Chung, Eric Lim Teik; Mohd Azmi Mohd Lila; Abdul Aziz Saharee; Konto Mohammed; Yusuf Abba; Muhammad Abubakar Sadiq; Abdul Wahid Haron; Asinamai Athliamai Bitrus; Noor Hanani Mat Isa; Abdul Muhaimin Ropie

A cross-sectional study on the association between farmers’ awareness and compliance on herd health program among five selected dairy cattle farms in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan states, Malaysia

2017

A cross-sectional study was designed to determine the level ofawareness of selected dairy farmers to herd health program (HHP) and compliance in the Program LadangAngkat (PLA). The study also determined the association between farmers’ awareness and compliance in promoting herd health. An open-ended questionnaire was randomlyadministered to five dairy cattle farms within Selangor and Negeri Sembilan as representative dairy farms enlisted into the PLA of Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia. The mean herd size of the farms was 102.20±20.80, with a range of 30-160 heads of dairy cattle, having an average mean number of milking cows at 29.40±11.22. There was a higher (p<0.05) mean herd health awareness level (72.86±5.78%) among the farmers once compared with the mean compliance level (61.2 ± 4.1%) for 10 out of the 14 HHP components; with the lowest compliances being disease monitoring programme(33.20%) and biosecurity (39.9%). There was a significant (p<0.05), direct, weak positive correlation (r = 0.245; p = 0.042) between farmers’ awareness and farmers’ compliance to the 14 components of the HHP. This study highlights an appreciable level of awareness among dairy farmers in the PLA, with a relatively low compliancelevels to the HHP components.

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