South Asian .1. Agric., 2008, 3 (l&2):3-6 ISSN 1WI-0037 Prevalence of Diseases in Dairy Cows and Their Crossbred Calves in Manikgonj District of Bangladesh M.M. Rahman 1 , M.R. Islam 2 , A.K. Roy 3 , M.M. Hossain 4 *, K.M. Islam 1 and J.U. Ahmed 5 'Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Parasilology, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet : Scnior Scientific Officer, Animal Health Research Division, Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute, Savar. Dhaka Senior Officer. Milk Vita, Manikgonj 4 Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Sylhet Agricultural University. Sylhel '''Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economies. Sylhet Agricultural University. Sylhel Abstract The research plan was designed to provide an insight of common diseases of dairy cows and their crossbred calves al Manikgonj district of Bangladesh. A total of 28 contact dairy farmers were selected randomly and the farms were visited twice a week to collect information and to collect suspected samples for diagnosis of diseases al Animal Health Research Division Laboratory of Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute, Savar, Dhaka-1341, Bangladesh. Out of 91 adult cows, 58 were affected with different diseases of which reproductive diseases were 67.24% followed by infectious diseases (17.24%) and nutritional & metabolic diseases (15.52%). The highly prevalent reproductive, nutritional & metabolic and infectious diseases were mastitis, food poisoning and ephemeral fever while the less prevalent diseases for the same categories were cystic ovary; pica & tympany and actinomycosis, pneumonia & anaplasmosis respectively. Their crossbred calves were mostly affected with navel ill (45.45%) followed by coccidiosis (18.18%-), diarrhoea (18.18%), foot & mouth disease (9.09) and black quarter (9.09%). Key words: Prevalence, diseases, dairy cows, crossbred calves. Introduction Dairy farms in Bangladesh are very small often having one lactating cow. However, some urban and peri-urban farms often contain 5-20 lactating cows. The development of dairy farms is quite slow in Bangladesh. The farm starts with lactating cows had better productive performance and provide with good economic return (Hasan, 1995) but with the advancement of time the farms become uneconomic because of serious drop in productivity and consequently many farms had to close down. Prolonged post-partum intervals to the initiation of ovarian activity and low conception rate are the major constraints limiting the farming in Bangladesh (Alam and Ghosh, 2001; Shamsuddin et al. 2001). The farmers invest a certain capital and that capital should bring some return to them, provided optimum management practices and followed. This means, when management practices are compromised, the farms will bring less than their potential economic return. Consequently, a major portion of the economic return will remain as opportunity, which would have been achieved if the management practices could be improved substantially. Other than prolonged post-parlum intervals and low conception rate, dairy farmers are also facing different disease problems with their dairy cows and crossbred calves like milk fever, mastitis, abortion, metritis, retained placenta, repeat breeding symptoms, foot and mouth diseases, navel ill, diarrhea etc. The present study was designed to know the prevalence of diseases in dairy cows and their crossbred calves at the farms of contact dairy farmers of milk vita. Materials and Methods A total of 28 contact dairy farmers of Milk vita of Saturia and Manikgonj sadar upazilas under Manikgonj district of Bangladesh were randomly selected for this study. The study was conducted during the period of January to December 2007. The contact small holding farms were having 2-6 dairy cows and the cows were mostly local zebus and their crosses with the Friesian, Shahiwal, Sindhi, and Jersey. The farms were visited twice a week in order to collect the data on disease incidence. Moreover the farmers were requested to contact with the researchers in case of any emergency. The data on farm diseases .were collected from 91 adult dairy cows and their 40 crossbred calves of contact farmers all around the year in a personal interview and observation of farms. The suspected samples were collected from affected cows and tested at Animal Health Research Division Laboratory of Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute, Savar, Dhaka-1341, Bangladesh. The diseases were finally diagnosed on the basis of clinical signs, response to treatment and test results. Results and Discussion In this study a total of 91 adult cows and 40 crossbred calves were studied year round, of which 58 and 11 were found to be affected with different diseases respectively. The prevalence of diseases of dairy cows and their calves are shown in Table-1 and 2. "•Corresponding author: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhe