Identification of Ethno-Veterinary Practices for Animal Diseases in Assosa Zone

Ethno-veterinary medicine is the application of traditional knowledge, theory, and practice to mitigate livestock diseases. The study conducted to document veterinary use of medicinal herbs of local users in Assosa Zone, Ethiopia from September 2022 to July 2023. Data collected between individual based field’s interviews using semi-structured questionnaire. Most of the respondents were males and with age group of 40 to 60 years old. Most of the respondents were illiterate by educational status and Muslims by religion. Around 68.6% of respondents acquire their traditional knowledge from family and most traditional healers prepared remedies from plants 73 (71.6%). In our investigation, 71 plant species from five districts identified. Those plants used against 68 types of livestock diseases and to increase livestock outputs. Those plants botanically distributed across 43 families. Data from our study suggested that the highest number of plant species was found in Solanaceae and Fabaceae family with (13.95%) followed by Combreataceae and Asteraceae (9.30%). Majority of the medicinal plants reported were found from forest (42.25%) followed by both possible to cultivated or found in forest (35.21%), and Backyard (21.13%). Majorities of medicinal plant preparations was from root parts (25.35%), followed by leaf, seed (22.54%), and bark (8.45%). The current study has revealed that the natives in the districts have been heavily dependent on traditional veterinary medicine for the treatment of variety of livestock diseases. Thus, it should recommend that conservational activities of medicinal plants and governmental encouragements of traditional healers should be addressed.