Smallholder livestock farmers' animal health management practices in South Africa

Primary animal health care is an important ingredient to sustainable and profitable livestock farming. The aim of the study was to investigate the animal health care management practices adopted by smallholder livestock farmers in South Africa. Combinations of multi-stage and stratified sampling techniques were used to select 591 farmers across five provinces in South Africa. The results revealed that farmers employed various primary animal health care practices to prevent diseases. The degree of uptake of the different primary animal health care practices differed across the five provinces. In general, dipping, vaccination and deworming were the most used disease preventative measures while disinfection, isolation and restricted access were the least used disease preventative measures. Although dipping was a common primary animal health care practice, the Free State lagged behind. Membership of livestock association and livestock expenditure were the major drivers of adoption of primary animal health care practices. The study also found that livestock farmers across the provinces were spending a significant amount of household income on primary animal health care. Household livestock management expenditure was influenced by household head education level, income, and herd size. In light of these findings, the study recommends that there should be targeted interventions on primary animal health care (i.e., provision of dipping infrastructure) driven through bottom-up approaches.