Exploring the Mental Model of Cattle Farmers in Disease Prevention and Control Practices
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
3. Results
3.1. Farmers’ Characteristics
3.2. Mental Model
3.2.1. Drivers of Action
Must be careful. When you buy new cows and bulls, you have to do blood test first. Some people have Brucella, they won’t tell you. Then the sick animals come to your farm, breed with our cows, they will get Brucella.(F2)
You see, first is you cannot buy diseased animals. If the animal is carrying disease, the disease is there. Get good animals, clean animals, from abroad, not local. You cannot source animals locally now.(F5)
We cannot bring animals from outside. We just keep whatever we have and we test them again. We must cull the infected ones. Other than that, we can’t do much. Or, we can cull the entire herd.(F1)
Every day we make sure that we throw all feces away to make sure the floor is clean and wash their legs and nails because diseases come from their nails.(F4)
When outbreaks are happening, we will definitely put some sacks of lime and all at the main entrance.(F5)
Wild cows can jump a 4-foot drain. I make big perimeter drains and STILL they come in! And then there’s a lot of wild boars. Wild boars carry a lot of diseases, blood parasite diseases. So it’s very challenging.(F3)
No grazing, I cut and carry. Too scared to let them out to graze. When you know this group of friends has all kinds of sickness, you won’t want to mix with them. You know that all the village cows are there, why would you want to let your cows graze?(F3)
3.2.2. Perception of Practice Options
I think the effectiveness of vaccines and drugs are important. But the vaccines for FMD are not practical. The hassle of catching every cattle for vaccination every six months is too much work. You need 5 people to catch because there’s no proper cattle crush.(F7)
The tube well is very expensive. But it’s okay, I’m only thinking of improving the quality of the milk, the quality of the cows, their life, you know, give them the best.(F3)
During an outbreak, we will spend on medicine and vitamins. We will increase vitamin supplementation to increase their antibody based on their body weight. We are confident to give this because we have a weighing scale.(F4)
3.2.3. Individual Determinants
We don’t buy from neighboring countries. We only buy from local reputable suppliers with proper records. Because animals that we bought last time died. We don’t know why. It looks physically healthy. When we bought, it did not have any records of drugs given and health.(F4)
We better grow ourselves, buy animals ourselves without assistance. My farm had tuberculosis from the pregnant heifers introduced under the previous animal subsidized scheme. Foot-and-mouth disease broke out in the first week, and later many had tuberculosis.(F5)
If you go to any farm, you must be clean, you must have medicine, and most important is to spray disinfectant. If this farm has disease, the germs sometimes touch your things, your boots, and your shoes. So when you go to their farm, the germs will spread. FMD can spread very fast. You can see the signs in 12 h–10 h.(F2)
Workers must go for medical check-ups. Sometimes, foreigners have tuberculosis. Sometimes, the cows can also be infected. When we spit, maybe the cow comes in contact.(F2)
I’ve learned about (brucellosis) from my time studying at university but I’ve never seen a case. But it’s a serious disease, so it’s important that people are aware and that my workers are aware.(F7)
If I have my old cows here, and I add in new cows, all these cows will also get sick! I am also very worried. When you get a headache, you take Panadol, isn’t it? Headache gone. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m making myself feel comfortable that I’m bringing in new cows, all disease free.(F3)
3.2.4. External (Social and Economic)
Usually our animal department will have workshops or programs with vets and lecturers from UPM. The measures you must take to prevent, etc. I mainly get my advice from UPM doctors. I can call them anytime and they can advise me to do this, do that.(F3)
We also had to slaughter some that were not having diseases because it was recommended by the veterinary authority, just dispose.(F5)
Through word of mouth, my friends will tell me careful of some cows, there’s disease.(F3)
We join a lot of breeders Facebook groups. From there we get information when they update on current disease status.(F4)
When we have diseases, we have to put animals to sleep. It will affect my milk production and income. I have to source for milk outside and profit margin will be less. If we don’t spend to prevent diseases now, we will regret later. The loss will be bigger, very big!(F1)
So after I buy the new cows, I will be more careful. I won’t even let students come inside. Because you all visit a lot of farms also, you can carry the disease, you see. And you know, the cows are very expensive, RM 8000, 9000, 10,000. Loss of livestock is a big deal for me. We have no insurance. If anything happens, we cannot get compensation.(F3)
This is not really a business [for me]. I lose money every month so nothing matters to me. But if the stock is wiped out then I’ll be very upset.(F7)
I lived abroad for a few years and I like animal farming. I think the cattle farms are very beautiful. So I wanted something like that.(F7)
3.2.5. External (Other Challenges)
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Production Type | Production System | Cattle Herd Size | Other Farmed Animals | Years of Farming Experience | Familiar Zoonotic Disease | Experienced Tb or Bru Outbreak |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dairy | Semi-intensive | 80 | Buffalo, goats | >30 | Tb, Bru | Yes |
Dairy | Intensive | 60 | - | >20 | Tb | Yes |
Dairy | Intensive | 150 | Buffalo | >40 | Tb, Bru | Yes |
Beef | Semi-intensive | 200 | - | >40 | Tb, Bru | Yes |
Beef | Intensive | 40 | Horse, goats | >10 | Tb, Bru | No |
Beef & Dairy | Semi-intensive | 200 | Buffalo | >30 | Tb, Bru | No |
Beef & Dairy | Intensive | 100 | Buffalo | >10 | Bru | No |
No. | Practices | Category of Practices |
---|---|---|
1 | Disinfection and cleaning | Biosecurity |
2 | Personal protective equipment (PPE)/separate farm clothing | |
3 | Movement control | |
4 | Replacement herd | |
5 | Quarantine | |
6 | Perimeter | |
7 | Wildlife control | |
8 | Grazing management | |
9 | Clean water | Herd health |
10 | Disease screening | |
11 | Animal care and monitoring | |
12 | Isolation | |
13 | Vaccination | |
14 | Veterinary | Animal health intervention |
15 | Supplementation | |
16 | Drug use | |
17 | Culling | |
18 | Milk hygiene practices | Milk hygiene practices |
19 | Personnel education | Personnel health and education |
20 | Personnel health check | |
21 | General disease control practices | General |
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Suit-B, Y.; Hassan, L.; Krauss, S.E.; Ramanoon, S.Z.; Ooi, P.T.; Yasmin, A.R.; Epstein, J. Exploring the Mental Model of Cattle Farmers in Disease Prevention and Control Practices. Vet. Sci. 2020, 7, 27. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci7010027
Suit-B Y, Hassan L, Krauss SE, Ramanoon SZ, Ooi PT, Yasmin AR, Epstein J. Exploring the Mental Model of Cattle Farmers in Disease Prevention and Control Practices. Veterinary Sciences. 2020; 7(1):27. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci7010027
Chicago/Turabian StyleSuit-B, Yong, Latiffah Hassan, Steven Eric Krauss, Siti Zubaidah Ramanoon, Peck Toung Ooi, Abd Rahaman Yasmin, and Jonathan Epstein. 2020. "Exploring the Mental Model of Cattle Farmers in Disease Prevention and Control Practices" Veterinary Sciences 7, no. 1: 27. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci7010027