Abstract            Volume:13  Issue-8  Year-2025         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2025 to May 2025 at Debremarkos Municipal Abattoir, Northwest Ethiopia with the objectives of assessing the prevalence, location, and type of foreign bodies in the rumen and reticulum in cattle slaughtered at Debremarkos Municipal Abattoir. And to correlate the frequency of foreign bodies with factors such as cattle origin, farming system, sex, age, breed, and body condition of animals. Both ante-mortem and postmortem examinations were conducted to examine the live animal and for the recovery of foreign bodies from the rumen and reticulum after slaughter respectively. The study animals were selected by using a simple random sampling method from animals presented for slaughter. Totally 384 animals were examined and 97/384 (25.3%) of them were positive for the occurrence of foreign bodies in the rumen and reticulum. The prevalence of foreign bodies detected from the slaughtered animals was significantly associated with cattle origin, farming system, and cattle body condition (p-value<0.05). There was no significant association between male and female cattle in the occurrence of foreign bodies (p-value=0.05). Foreign body prevalence was not significantly associated with the breed and age of cattle (p-value>0.05). The prevalence of foreign bodies was found to be higher in the rumen (86.6%) than in the reticulum (9.3%), with the rest of the proportion occurring in both the rumen and reticulum (4.1%). The types of foreign bodies found were plastic, cloth, rope, and metal. Plastic was higher in proportion (52.6 %) and other foreign materials found in the rumen and reticulum were cloth (27.3%), rope (15.5%), and metal (4.1%). The results of this study showed that inappropriate disposal of solid waste in the environment has a higher risk for animals and causes environmental pollution. Therefore, responsible stakeholders the government, policymakers, livestock professionals, and communities should give attention to appropriate waste disposal methods to reduce environmental pollution, encourage societies to use biodegradable bags instead of plastics, and farmers should manage their herd properly by providing adequate nutrition, and reducing free grazing practices.

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