What to do with chronically sick animals? Pastoralists’ management strategies in the far north region of Cameroon

Pastoralism

Research, Policy and Practice

Table 1 Summary statistics for mobile and sedentary herds

Measure	Mobile	Sedentary	Overall average	Unit	95% CI	Statistical test	p value
Herd size	58.8	41.3	49.6	Cattle	34.2 to 65.1	Mann-Whitney	0.0362
Chronically sick animals	0.60	2.27	1.48	Cattle	0.46 to 2.49	Mann-Whitney	0.0331
Calf morbidity	21.5	19.0	20.8	Percent	13.0 to 28.5	Chi square	0.9963
Mothers' morbidity	9.2	19.0	13.2	Percent	6.8 to 19.7	Chi square	0.2194
Mothers' age at first calving	4.53	4.96	4.5	Years	(3 to 17)^b	Mann-Whitney	0.2537
Mothers' average age	7.3	7.88	7.5	Years	(4 to 20)^b	Mann-Whitney	0.7714
Lifetime calves per mother	2.2	2	2	Calves	(1 to 6)^b	Mann-Whitney	0.4568
Calf mortality	13.2	14.1	13.5	Percent	9.0 to 18.0	Chi square	0.3286
Observed abortions	0.03	0.03	0.03	Per cow/year	0.01 to 0.05	NA	NA
Fertility rate^a	26.2	13.4	20.6	Percent	3.3 to 37.9	t test, one-tailed^c	0.0432
Brucellosis Prevalence	46.1	27.4	36.3	Percent	34.9 to 37.7	t test, two-tailed	0.4201

^aCalves < 6 months old/Total cattle in herd; ^brange rather than 95% CI; ^ca one-tailed test was used here because prior work suggested that mobile herds would have higher fertility rates than sedentary herds.