Sanitary profile of goat and sheep from Vale do Sambito, Piauí

This study has arisen from the research and extension project named as "MELHORIA DA EFICI?NCIA PRODUTIVA DA OVINOCAPRINOCULTURA DO VALE DO SAMBITO, PIAU?, ATRAV?S DA INTRODU??O DE BOAS PR?TICAS DE MANEJO" (Productive efficiency improvement of sheep and goat farming from Vale do Sambito, Piau?, through introduction of good management practices), public call of CNPQ N? 464125/2014-6. The state of Piau? is in the third position in goat farming and fourth position in sheep farming, in Brazilian ranking (IBGE, 2013). However, there are no qualitative parameters about the development of sheep and goat farming in different regions of Piau?, mainly in regard to sanitary management. Thus, this study aimed to characterize the sanitary profile of goat and sheep herds from the region of Vale do Sambito, Piau?, Brazil. This study was carried out in 136 goats and/or sheep production units, through application of investigative questionnaire adapted from Bandeira et al. (2007). Based on this questionnaire, sanitary management and clinical signs of the main diseases described by farmers were investigated. This study is also comprised by creation of a dataset for table analysis associated with the descriptive study. Thereby, a sanitary profile of herds was elaborated, using the program Excel (Microsoft Office). Among the sanitary management practices, vermifugation was the most used, since it was practiced in 95.6% (130/136) of the herds investigated, followed by some type of vaccination, which represented 71.3% (97/136) of this total. Navel healing was performed in 44.8% (61/136) of farms. In relation to the clinical signs reported by farmers who were interviewed, problems with verminosis had the highest frequency, which was 94.1% (52/136), followed by myiasis with 79.4% (108/136), caseous lymphadenitis with 80.15% (109/136), pododermatitis 55.1% (75/136), contagious ecthyma 42.65% (58/136) and clostridiosis 37.5% (51/136). The sanitary management has been used in an unsuitable or insufficient way in most of farms evaluated. Therefore, is extremely important the knowledge about the actual situation of the goat farming in certain region, for creation of actions to improve this activity. Technical assistance is required for orientations to control diseases reported in the present study, in order to achieve higher productivity of the herd.