Abstract

Irrespective of the production systems employed, one of the major constraints to ruminants? production in Nigeria and elsewhere is gastro intestinal parasitism. The study examined the indigenous technologies for the treatment of helminths in cattle among settled agro-pastoralist in southwest Nigeria. Two hundred agro-pastoralists were selected using convenient sampling techniques, but 169 respondents were eventually interviewed and this account to the number of returned questionaire. Data collected on personal characteristics; indigenous technologies used by agro-pastoralist, preferred indigenous technology and effectiveness of indigenous technologies for the treatment of helminthes in cattle were subjected to both descriptive (such as frequency count, percentage, and mean) and inferential (ANOVA) statistical analyses. The findings showed that respondents? mean age was 47, years, mean household size was 12 persons and 43.8% had only Quranic education while 90.5% of them were married. The most commonly used, and preferred indigenous plant for the treatment of helminthes were Ewuro (x ?= 3.69), Efirin (x ?= 3.29), Ata wewe (x ?= 3.24), Alubosa (x ?= 3.17), Ewe ibepe (x ?= 3.16) and Iyere (x ?= 3.10). Conventional drug caused a significant decline between Day1 (x ?= 4300.00 SD?788.811) to Day 3 (x ?= 0.00 SD?0.00). The herbal drug significantly cleared the worm loads between Day1 (x ?= 4500.00 SD?623.61) to Day 4 (x ?= 0.00 SD ?0.00) while there are no significant changes in the control group. The study concludes that agro-pastoralist communities were young with large household member, rich in traditional knowledge on medicinal plants used to treat their herds. It is therefore recommended that preservation of all the identified indigenous technologies used by the Agro-pastoralist should be avoided to go extinction and educate them on the proper usage of anti-helminthes drugs and administration.

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