School of Agriculture and Fisheries Sciences

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Browsing School of Agriculture and Fisheries Sciences by Author "Gorejena, Brighton"

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    Assessment of normal mortalities, biosecurity and welfare of Lohmann Brown layers at a farm in central Namibia
    (2020) Samkange, Alaster; Mushonga, Borden; Kandiwa, Erick; Kambode, Josephina Ndamonako; Mbiri, Pricilla; Gorejena, Brighton; Madzingira, Oscar
    Objective: The current study investigated the causes of mortality and evaluated the biosecurity situation and welfare conditions of Lohmann Brown layer chickens reared for 12 months, from point-of-lay, at farm A in central Namibia. Materials and Methods: Necropsies, standard biosecurity appraisal and on-farm welfare assessment tools were used. A standard protocol was used for post-mortem examinations of dead birds. The Chi-square test was used for analysis of causes of mortality whilst linear regression was used for analysis of the temporal distribution of mortality. Results: The overall mortality rate throughout the study period was 18.7% (N = 1000). There was a very strong negative correlation between duration of birds in lay and proportion of live birds [r (162) = 0.97, p<0.05]. The proportion of live birds decreased by an average of 2.98% for every 50 days of the laying period. Overall, the proportional mortalities due to undetermined causes (31.6%) were greater than those due to inflammatory conditions, trauma, cannibalism and retained eggs (20.9,19.3,16.6 and 11.8% respectively, p<0.05). Conclusion: The high mortality rates reported in this study have an obvious negative impact on productivity and thus there is a need to improve the biosecurity and welfare conditions for these layers in order to improve profitability.
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    Demographics, distribution, ownership and naming patterns of pets presented to a mobile clinic for sterilisation in Namibia
    (2020) Baines, Ian John; Baines, Sharon; Mushonga, Borden; Gorejena, Brighton; Mbiri, Pricilla; Samkange, Alaster; Kandiwa, Erick; Madzingira, Oscar
    This study analysed the demographics, spatial distribution, ownership and naming patterns of dogs and cats presented to the University of Namibia’s veterinary mobile clinic for sterilisation from small underserved towns around Namibia. The proportional distribution of pets was determined based on species, sex, age, owner gender, town of origin and naming categories. Overall, 84.4% (n = 2909) of the animals presented for sterilisation were dogs and the remainder were cats (15.6%, n = 539). Of the dogs presented for sterilisation, 51.9% (n = 1509) were male and 48.1% (n = 1400) were female. In cats, 51.4% (n = 277) were male, whilst 48.6% (n = 262) were female. Overall, the majority of pets (68.2%) were presented for sterilisation from urban areas than rural areas (31.8%). About 49.8% of men and 24.2% of women that presented pets for sterilisation came from urban areas, whilst 20.1% of the women and 11.7% of the men that presented pets for sterilisation were from rural areas. Of all the pets presented for sterilisation, the majority were male-owned (64%, n = 2206). Pets were mainly presented for sterilisation at < 2 years (41.1%), 2 to < 4 years (32.4%) and 4 to < 6 years (15.4%). The naming of pets was mainly after people (42.4%), circumstances (20.6%) and appearance (15.5%). This community engagement exercise yielded valuable demographic data indicating that pet origin, sex and species and owner gender were important factors in determining the voluntary presentation of pets for sterilisation in the study area.