Context. Smallholder dairy farming is becoming an important source of food, income and employment for many urban dwellers in Ethiopia. However, suboptimal productivity is a major constraint due to diseases and poor management practices. Aims. The present work aimed at assessing management practices, dairy cattle diseases, and methods used by farmers to identify diseases on smallholdings in selected towns of Jimma zone, south-western Ethiopia. Methods. Data for the study were obtained by surveying 52 dairy-keeping fanners by using a semi-structured questionnaire and personal observations. Key results. The mean herd size of indigenous and crossbred cattle was 5 +/- 0.04 and 2 +/- 0.4 respectively. Natural pasture was the main source of feed with supplementation, mainly with agro-industrial by-products, concentrate mixes, non-conventional feeds and crop residues. In total, 75% of the respondents practiced a free-grazing system. Most (64%) of the respondents used natural service for breeding. In all, 64% and 35% of the respondents washed their hands and the teats respectively, before milking. In the order of decreasing percentage of respondents, the most frequently reported dairy cattle health problems were tick infestation, mastitis, lumpy skin disease, blackleg, heart water, facioliasis, trypanosomiasis, foot-and-mouth disease, pasteurellosis, brucellosis and anthrax. Repeated breeding, retained fetal membranes, abortion, stillbirths and dystocia were the common reproductive health problems, in a decreasing order of the reported percentage. Lumpy skin disease was reported as a major cause of calf and lactating-cow deaths. A total of 89% of the respondents used veterinary medicines to treat their sick animals. About 24% of the respondents stated culling of their animals due to old age, lack of space, infertility, feed shortage, need for cash and low production, in a decreasing order of importance. Conclusions. The results showed farmers are well knowledgeable in cattle production practices and are actually mitigating effects of most disease challenges in their farms, which may have resulted in low milk productivity.
