Prevalence of mastitis in dairy goat farms in Eastern Algeria

This study aimed to investigate mastitis in dairy goat farms through the California mastitis test (CMT) and bacteriological examinations.

A total of 845 goats belonging to 18 farms from four regions (Tébessa, Guelma, Souk Ahras, and Skikda) were examined.

Clinical examination of the mammary glands showed that 30/845 (3.55%) goats had clinical mastitis and 32 goats had half-teat inflammation. CMT subclinical mastitis (SCM) was detected in 815 goats that were presumed to be healthy. CMT showed 46 (5.64%) CMT-positive goats as well as 47 (2.88%) positive half-udders with a score of ≥2. A total of 79 bacteria were isolated and identified from the 79 bacterial positive samples. Bacteriological analyses showed that Gram-positive staphylococci were largely responsible for clinical and SCM. Coagulase-negative staphylococci, with an isolation frequency of 56.96%, were the most prevalent bacteria from all isolated organisms. The second most prevalent organism was Staphylococcus aureus at 40.50% and streptococci (2.53%) had the smallest percentage of isolation.

It is suggested that due to the prevalence of mastitis in this species, farmers should be aware of the problem to plan preventive and control measures to reduce dairy goat losses due to this disease.