Dairy Production Practices And Evaluation Of Milk Quality In Sebeta Town Of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

The study was conducted in Sebeta town South West showa Zone with the objectives of a dairy production practices and evaluation of milk quality. From a total of nine kebeles of Sebeta town, three representative kebeles were selected, purposively based on their dairy production potential. From the selected kebeles,36 smallholder farmers and 51 smallholder micro enterprises were randomly selected and interviewed. Twenty one pooled milk samples were taken from smallholder farmers (9), smallholder micro-enterprises (9) and selling point of shops (3) were evaluated for microbial and chemical compositions. The result showed that male respondents dominant at both smallholder farmers (77.8%) and smallholder micro enterprises (64.7%). The present study has identified two production systems; namely, peri urban and urban dairy production systems where the later type is dominating.Purebred dairy cattle were dominantly owned at both systems. The average milk yield per cow per day in Sebeta town was 11.5 liters.The major feed resources were agro-industrial byproducts, industrial byproducts (brewery grain) and purchased hay grasses. Tape water was the main sources of water and animals were housed in constructed separate sheds/barns with concrete floor. AI was the most common methods for cattle breeding. Feed shortage, cost of feed and shortage of land are the major challenges in the study area. Laboratory examination revealed that the overall mean percent fat content, solid nonfat (SNF), total solid, protein, lactose, added water and solid were; 2.56±0.28, 7.96±0.8, 10.51±1.10, 3.08±0.35, 4.16±0.42, 18.26±11.93 and 0.63±0.05 respectively. The specific gravity of the raw milk ranged from 1.023 - 1.031g/cm3. All milk samples from milk shops, 77.8% from smallholder micro enterprises and 44.5% from smallholder farmers showed presence of mastitis in the milk. The most important bacteria isolated were E. coli and S. aureus. Milk collected from small micro enterprise, smallholder farmers and selling point of milk shops were subjected to bacterial infection and does not meet the requirements of international milk quality standard. Therefore, awareness creation and strict quality control is recommended to safeguard public health of the consumers.