Ethnoveterinary Practices of Medicinal Plants and Non-plant Remedies Used in Animal Health Management in Dawuro Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Background: Ethnoveterinary medicine is frequently used for treating various livestock diseases by many different ethnic groups in Ethiopia. To this end, the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants and non-plant remedies has not been systematically documented and studied in the Dawuro zone. Therefore, a community based cross-sectional study design was conducted from November, 2017 to September, 2018 in order to identify and document medicinal plants and non-plant remedies used in animal health management. Methods: Relevant information on ethnoveterinary practice was collected from purposively selected 115 key informants using semi-structured questionnaire, focus group discussions, observations and eld guided walk methods. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, quantitative ethnobotanical methods and t-test and signicantly test was set to p< 0.05. The plants claimed having medicinal value were collected and botanically identied. Results: The study revealed 103 plant species belong to 47 families and 11 non-plant remedies used to manage 36 different livestock ailments. Family Asteraceae accounted for 11.5% of the total species recorded. The majority of plants (56.2%) were harvested from wild habitat. Herbs (33.8%) were the main source of medicine followed by tree (30.6%). Leaves (43.6%) and roots (27.5%) were the main plant parts used while pounding was the major form in remedy preparation. The highest Informant Consensus Factor (0.83) value was scored for the disease of the reproductive system. Signicant difference (P<0.05) was observed in average number of therapeutic plants reported by illiterate higher than literate groups. Cyphostemma avicans (Baker) Desc. and Pentas schimperi were showed the highest Fidelity Level (100%) to treat disease of the reproductive system, and emaciation and bone fracture as plant materials whereas Bear faeces, sharp hot iron or wire/knife, and common salt were non-plant remedies used in the study area. Conclusion: The study revealed that the local community of in the study areas was used with a rich of indigenous knowledge of ethnoveterinary medicinal plants. The loss of valuable medicinal plant resources of the area calls for urgent and coordinated actions to develop conservation

long been dependent on the ethnoveterinary practices accessed from their vicinity and non-plant original experiences to manage various animal health problems.

Study design
A community based cross-sectional study design was conducted with individual survey to assess and document the current status of the indigenous knowledge of community about medicinal plants and non-plant remedies. Relevant data were collected from the community by using semi-structured questionnaires, supplemented by an in-depth interview with the herbalists, and eld observations were conducted. Specimen vouchers have given on the spot for each plant species and later identify using taxonomic keys in the relevant volumes of the ora of Ethiopia.

Selection of informants
In this study, a total of 115 key informants (107 males and 8 females) were purposively selected from three districts (Tocha, Mareka and Loma) based on the wide use of ethnoveterinary practices and availability of traditional healers. Selection of informants was performed according to [31] who stated that when recording indigenous knowledge controlled by ethnobotanical healers or by certain social groups, the choice of key informant is vital. The selections of the informants were carried out with the collaboration of districts and local governmental bodies, and community elders based on their rich indigenous knowledge and long-term experience on medicinal plants for animal disease management.
Ethnoveterinary data collection Ethnoveterinary data were collected from November, 2017 to September, 2018. The face-to-face interview was made by using pre-tested semi-structured questionnaires prepared in English and was translated into ''Dawurotsuwaa'' local language. Medicinal plant samples were collected in blooming stages annually with the objective of collecting plant specimens during the respective owering seasons. A questionnaire, interview addressed questions like local names of medicinal plants, ailments treated, habit of the species, marketability, sources (wild/cultivated or both), parts used, other ingredients or additives (if any), methods of preparation, dosage formulation, routes of administration, noticeable side effects of remedies, use of antidotes for side effects, taboos/beliefs related to collection and restriction on use of plants, source of knowledge, ways of indigenous knowledge transfer, and non-plant remedies. Other information, including the age, gender, level of education, occupation, and religion, background of informants were recorded. Each informant was separately interviewed in their local languages in order to keep the secrecy of their indigenous knowledge, for local appropriateness and easiness in approaching the study objectives.
In addition, 14 focus groups (one focus group per kebeles with an average number of 6-10 participants) discussions were undertaken to gain further information on medicinal plant knowledge of the community and prove the reliability of the data collected through semi-structured interviews [31,32]. Field trips were made with local herbalists for the collection of the reported medicinal plants. Voucher specimens of medicinal plants were collected in the eld with the help of traditional healers and eld assistants. Collected medicinal plants were dried, numbered, pressed and labeled were brought to the Ethiopian Herbarium for further botanical identi cation. Specimen identi cation and con rmation were undertaken by using Flora of Ethiopia. Finally, the specimens were deposited at the National Herbarium (ETH) in Addis Ababa University.

Ethical consideration
This study was approved by the Ethical and research review Board of O ce of Jimma University, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. A brief discussion was held with the selected Districts governmental bodies and informants prior to data collection in explaining the main objective of the study. In addition, the consent of each respondent was asked verbally to participate in the study. This was done in order to acknowledge informants' cooperation in preserving the traditional knowledge of the study area and build their con dence for providing reliable information. Consequently, the con dentiality of their traditional property owners was completely maintained during data collection.

Data management and analysis
Ethnoveterinary data were entered and coded using MS Excel, and was transferred to the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Software (SPSS) versions 20. A descriptive statistical method such as percentage, frequency and tables were employed to analyze and summarize the data on medicinal plants of species and families of ethnoveterinary medicinal plants, their growth forms, parts harvested; methods of preparation and routes of administration. Preferences ranking of ethnoveterinary plant species used to treat the commonly reported livestock ailments in the study area were ranked by adding the values/scores of preferences given by respective informants so as to identify the most-preferred medicinal plant species to treat the most frequently reported disease type in the area following the relevant standard methods [31,32].
Informant Consensus Factor (ICF) values [33,34] were calculated to determine the most important livestock ailment categories in the Districts and identify potentially effective medicinal plant species in respective disease categories.
Accordingly, reported traditional remedies and corresponding livestock ailments occurring in the zone were categorized into six disease categories and the Informant Consensus Factor values were obtained by computing number of use citations in each disease category (Nur) minus the number of times species used (Nt), divided by the number of use citations in each category minus one.

ICF = Nur-Nt
Nur-1 Where, Nur = number of use reports from informants for a particular plant-use category; Nt = number of taxa or species that are used for that plant use category for all informants.
In this study, the delity level analytical approach was also used in evaluating the plants and non-plant remedies in the study area. The delity level is mathematically expressed as FL = Ip/Iu × 100, where FL is the delity level of each plant or non-plant material, Ip is the number of informants who mentioned that a plant or non-plant material has speci c ethnoveterinary uses against a particular disease condition, and Iu is the total number of key informants who independently suggested that the same plant or non-plant material has any therapeutic uses [34,35]; and t-test with signi cantly test was set to P <0.05, was used to evaluate signi cant differences in the mean of medicinal plants reported by different genders, ages and education levels.

Results
Socio-demographic pro les of respondents A total of one hundred fteen (115) key informants were interviewed; of which one hundred seven (93%) were males and eight (7%) were females. The age of male informants with a mean age of 5.34±2.44 years and female informants with a mean age of 5.63±3.98 years. The number of plants reported by females was ranging from two to eight and males from 2 to 29 medicinal plants. The average number of medicinal plants reported by males (5.53±3.74) was the same as females (5.88±2.10), and the difference was not signi cant (p > 0.05). The average number of plants reported by young to middle aged informants (23 ≤ 39) was 5.34±2.44, old informants (40 ≤ 90) were 5.63±3.98, and the difference was not signi cant (p > 0.05). The average number of plants reported by illiterate informants was 4.69±2.43, a literate (completed at least primary education) was 6.57±4.50, and the difference was signi cant (p < 0.05). The difference among the study districts and different agro-ecology in the number of medicinal plants reported by each informant was not signi cant (p > 0.05). Regarding occupation, none of the informants practice traditional medicine as their only source of income. Most of the healers are farmers.

Indigenous knowledge and diversity of ethnoveterinary plants in Dawuro zone
The present study showed the rich knowledge of medicinal plants in Dawuro zone that was indicated by the number and diversity of medicinal plants reported. In this study, ethnoveterinary knowledge was acquired from different sources which include parents, friends and elders. Oral transfer of traditional knowledge of medicinal plants (90.4%) was the major source of knowledge acquisition; only 1.7% acquired knowledge through documenting and 7.8% kept secret their knowledge. The comparison between use frequency of medicinal plants and synthetic drugs showed that up to 50.4% of informants had frequently used the plants, especially for certain diseases which could not respond to modern drugs like mastitis and listeriosis; Just 45.2% answered that they use alternatively (both medicinal plants and modern drugs), and 4.3% con rmed that they depend on the modern antibiotics.
The local community utilizes a total of 103 ethnoveterinary medicinal plants belonging to 47 families and 11 nonbotanical remedies for the treatment of 36 different livestock ailments. The reported medicinal plants and their respective indications, use-value, preparation and plant parts used for extraction of medicines as presented in (Table 2). Among all the families, Asteraceae was found to be dominant (13 species, 11.5%) been in uses as remedies in the study area followed by Fabaceae (8.8%) and Solanaceae (8.4%), respectively. Regarding the type of plants, there were more of the herbs (33.8%) followed by tree (30.6%), shrub (27.5%) and climbers (8.1%). About 56.2% of medicinal plants were harvested from the wild environment, whereas 34.3% of cultivation and the remaining 9.5% were claimed to be collected from wild and cultivated sources. Different factors are claimed to be the major threats affecting medicinal plant resources of the area include deforestation (reported by 89% of informants), agricultural expansion (80%), charcoal production and rewood collection (33% collectively) and overgrazing (29%).

Common livestock ailments and application of traditional remedies in the study area
In this study, a total of 36 veterinary ailments were identi ed in the study area for which informants reported to use one or more plant species to treat speci c livestock ailments which categorized into infectious, non-infectious (grain overload, bloat and constipation), diseases of respiratory system, diseases of reproductive system, ectoparasites infestation and other ailments (bone broken, snake biting, trauma, poising and emaciation and fattening). A majority of (63.6%) veterinary ailments reported by the informant belongs to infectious, followed by other ailments (13.3%) as presented in (Figure 2). Out of total ailments, blackleg is the most common livestock disease locally called "S'okka" (18.0%) followed by trypanosomiasis "Goloba" (15.1%) (Table1).
Ethnoveterinary medicinal plants of the study area were a rmed to be applied for ailments affecting cattle, sheep, goats, equines, poultry and dogs. The majority of the medicinal plants (81.55%, 84 species) were found to be applied to treat one or more of the thirty-two (32) different cattle, sheep and goats' ailments. A relatively few species (3.88%, 4 species) were mentioned to be used against poultry and equine ailments and the remained 14.56% (15 plant species) were used for all animals in common. Regarding to treated animal species, the highest medicinal plants used for 89% cattle followed by 3.35% sheep, 3.2% equines, 2.2% poultry, 0.9% goats and 0.5% dogs, respectively.
Most ethnoveterinary medications (93.4%) were claimed to comprise remedial parts of a single plant species. However, 6.6% was prepared using formulations from more than two plant species. Amongst all plants used as medicine, the highest proportion of species was reported to treat blackleg (18.0%) and trypanosomiasis (15.1%), respectively. The highest number of multiple ethnoveterinary uses was recorded for Capsicum frutescens (treated against 12 ailments) and Croton macrostachyus and Lepidium sativum (10 ailments each) as presented in Table (2). Although different plant parts were reported to be used for treatment preparation by the community, commonly used plant parts are presented in Figure (3).

Preparation, routes of administration, and dosages variation of medicinal plants
Various methods of remedy preparations were reported to be used in the districts based on the type and severity of livestock diseases. Pounding the part in wooden or stone-made mortar and pestle, and homogenizing it with water is found to be the major method of preparation (77.88%), followed by crushing (7%) presented in Figure (4).
Traditional plant remedies are reported to be administered through oral, topical, nasal, fumes/smoking or auricular routes of the diseased animal. Oral application is reported to be the best-represented route of administration (72.35%), followed by nasal (16.11%), topical (9.64%), 1.26% fumes/smoking and 0.6% auricular routes. The results showed that traditional practitioners reported use of plastic jugs, glasses, bottles, cups, syringe, and gourd traditionally called "Buliyaa" to measure dosage for some medicinal recipes while others use a handful or numbers. About 58.3% practitioners use approximately to treat their animals.

Informants Consensus Factor (ICF), Fidelity Level, and Preference ranking of medicinal plants
Test for evaluation of medicinal plants, six major livestock ailment categories were identi ed from the total 36 veterinary ailments reported in the Zone. Highest Informants Consensus Factor (ICF) values were recorded for respiratory disease (0.83), infectious (0.78) and ectoparasites (0.74) categories presented in Table (3). In addition, highest plant use citation (57.34%) was recorded for infectious diseases.
Preference ranking exercise with 15 randomly selected key informants for medicinal plants that were reported to be used against Blackleg, the most frequently reported livestock disease under the infectious disease category, showed that Azadirachta indica and Eucalyptus globulus L. were most-preferred species to treat the reported disease (Table 5).

Non-plant remedies used in animal health management in the Dawuro zone
In this study, the community depend on traditional medicines due to primary healthcare system during outbreak and ailments rise, easy availability of medicinal plants, comparative effectiveness, inadequate modern drugs and veterinary infrastructures, long distance to clinic stations, affordability and low cost. The traditional non-botanical ethnoveterinary practices used in managing other cattle disease conditions are presented in (Table 6).

Medicinal plants used in ethnoveterinary practices in Dawuro zone
The importance of livestock in mixed farming systems is indicated by the numerous indirect effects of animal diseases in the study area and at country whole. Animal diseases are a major constraint to income generation and asset acquisition by the poor, since poor people have limited cash to pay for disease treatments [2][3][4]36]. To manage this problem livestock keepers, particularly in rural areas frequently uses traditional remedies to get solutions for their ill-health animals. Ethnoveterinary remedies are mainly made from plants, but also from animal body parts and byproducts, kerosene, oil, common salt, and soaps [8,[37][38][39][40][41].
Indigenous people in Dawuro zone are dependent on livestock is for supporting their livelihood. Medicinal plants have a vital role in the treatment of livestock's health problems in the area. Identi cation of speci c livestock ailment types in the area was found to be made based on indigenous knowledge of symptoms and corresponding livestock illnesses held in the memories of local people. Similar was found true in selecting medicinal plants which were thought to be most appropriate to manage different veterinary health problems [19,42].
The rich knowledge of ethnoveterinary medicinal plants in Dawuro zone that was indicated by the number and diversity of plants reported. The results showed that there was no signi cant difference in the average number of plants reported either by female or male respondents indicated that both men and women members of the community have good ethnoveterinary knowledge. However, discordant to this nding, men had more knowledge of plant usage because they are naturally selected during childhood to be apprentices of ethnoveterinary practices [19,43,44,45]. In this study, the knowledge regarding the treatment of animal ailments did not show any difference between the age groups. In other studies, however, it was observed that the number of medicinal plants reported was increased with age, and the older informants reported more medicinal plants than younger individuals [46][47][48][49]. This could be related to a higher degree of cultural contact and experience of the elderly members with curative plants than that of younger members in the community. Comparison of medicinal plant knowledge held among community members of varying education level showed signi cant difference (P<0.05) in plant use by illiterate informants reported signi cantly more medicinal plants over literate ones. This was also observed in other ethnoveterinary survey [44,49,50].
In the present study, 90.4% of traditional healers responded that they acquired their knowledge from their parents or close relatives. Moreover, the traditional healers have a very high intention to keep their ethnoveterinary knowledge secrete and unwillingness to transfer their knowledge freely to new generations. In line with the present study, other studies have reported that the highest medicinal plant knowledge acquisition by the healers was from parents or close relatives and they have a very high intention to keep their traditional knowledge secret elsewhere in Ethiopia [14,49,[51][52][53][54], and other countries [1,34,41,42] share a similar concern on the knowledge gap down generations in different cultural groups. On the other hand, deforestation (reported by 89% of informants) for agricultural expansion, charcoal production, rewood collection; and overgrazing (29%) were claimed as major factors affecting medicinal plant resources among the Dawuro society. Similarly, [19] reported that deforestation was principal threat to medicinal plants in Ankober area.
A total of 103 plant specimens having medicinal value were botanically classi ed and distributed into 34 families. In this study, the best representation of plant species having ethnoveterinary medicinal value was found in Asteraceae with 13 species has the highest species followed by Fabaceae (11 species), Lamiaceae (9 species) and Euphorbiaceae (7 species), respectively in the area. In line with this study, Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae and Euphorbiaceae, have also been reported as dominant families in other studies [55,56]. Moreover, herbs were the most commonly used plant habit in the study area. However, discordant to this nding, shrubs have been used as the most important ethnoveterinary medicinal plants in the other part of the country [57, [58][59][60][61].
The degree of ethnobotanical richness of the Dawuro zone based on the number of plant species and medicinal uses per informant is higher compared with the studies conducted in Ethiopia [2,10,14,40,62], in Brazil [50], South Africa [63,64], Pakistan [34,65], and India [56,58]. This could re ect a cultural conservation in the ethnobotanical and medical knowledge in the area, as suggested by the relatively high number of species reported by single informants. The millennia-old interaction of indigenous people in the area within the vicinity available medicinal plants might have enabled them to develop an indigenous knowledge system best t to select and use diverse curative medicinal plants to treat frequently occurring livestock diseases. The study of [19] pointed out that knowledge on plant use is the result of many years of human interaction and selection of the most desirable and successful plants present in the immediate environment at a given time.
Traditional medicinal plants used by the people in Dawuro zone are also used in other parts of the country and other African countries as reports indicate. This has been proved by botanical identi cations of the plant species and comparison with the reports of other scholars elsewhere. The studies commonly reported, examples Croton macrostachyus and Ricinus communis L. recorded for the Gilgel Ghibe area and Borana pastoralists [2,52]; Syzygium guineense, Buddleja polystachya and Amaranthus caudatus L., reported for peoples of Ejaji area (Chelya Woreda) [60]; Indigofera oblongifolia Forsk and Solanum incanum L. used in Afar region [49]; Vernonia amygdalina Del., and Juniperus procera L. reported for Ankober district of Amhara region [19]; while Withania somnifera L., Azadirachta indica L. and Allium sativum L. recorded for Hills of Eastern Ghats, India [61]; Ximenia americana L., and Withania saminfera L. recorded for the South Africa [64]; and Erythrina abyssinica and Jatropha curcas reported for Western Uganda [66]. The similarity could be common share of their cultural and traditional practices, and the distribution/availability of the species in use in the areas explored for their ethnoveterinary knowledge.
The reason could be related to the age-old ethnoveterinary experiences of traditional healers and dominant vegetation of these species in the area.
The leaves were found to be the most harvested plant parts, followed by roots in remedies preparations. Our nding consistent with previous reports in Ethiopia and elsewhere [50,60,[70][71][72][73]. This could be explained by traditional beliefs of the community about leaves having no di culty in collection, preparation, and the main site of photosynthesis that could be a possible reason for their effectiveness and e cacy against animal health problems. However, in contrast to this study [19,73,74] have found that the root is as the most used part in their studies. The difference could be as the pharmaceutical value and concentration of active ingredients in each plant variety depending on climatic and edaphic factors. People inhabiting different ecological zones use different plants and plant parts in their treatment arsenal stated by [2,54]. The dominant practice of harvesting majority (56.2%) of ethnoveterinary plants of Dawuro zone is from wild sources. This would indicate the degree of anthropogenic pressure exerted on wild plant resources of the area. Overdependence on wild resources together with reduction of the wild resources due to ever-increasing population pressure poses a threat to medicinal plant riches of the area. Comparable trends in overharvesting medicinal plants from uncultivated sources were also reported in other parts of Ethiopia [19,43,51,52,69,76], in Pakistan [65,77], and Brazil [50]. About 93.4% ethnoveterinary medications were reported to comprise remedial parts of a single medicinal plant in the present study, which is in agreement with the ndings of studies conducted elsewhere in Ethiopia [78,79]. However, 6.6% of the traditional medications were also prepared using formulations from two or more ethnoveterinary medicinal plant species either similar or different parts of the plants for treating livestock ailments may be attributed to the expected synergistic effect of combinations of parts and their bioactive ingredients to treat ailments. The therapeutic e cacy of combinations of medicinal plant parts used by other people living in northwest Ethiopia for treating various ailments has also reported by [33,79].
In this study, some medicinal plants were used to treat more than two ailments, while others are used to manage one ailment. The highest number of multiple ethnoveterinary uses were recorded for Capsicum frutescens (treated against 12 ailment types) and Lepidium sativum (10 ailment types); however, in contrast to this study, [19,51] have found that Allium sativum and C. guianensis were highest number of multiple ethnoveterinary uses, respectively.
Pounding the remedial part in wooden or stone-made mortar and pestle; and homogenizing it with cold water was found to be the most common method of local drugs extraction (78.8%), which is in line as documented in other studies [19,60,80] who reported pounding the remedial part and homogenizing it with water was found to be the major mode of remedy preparation. However, it is generally believed that the potency of the treatments can be enhanced when used in concoction form described by [34]. Oral (72.35%) administration is reported to be the best-represented route of administration as in the nding of [81,82] who reported oral as the most commonly used administration routes of medicine used in Eastern and Western Ethiopia. It is also in agreement with the result of various ethnobotanical studies conducted elsewhere in Ethiopia [19,80,83] which indicates oral as the predominant route of administration used by the herbalists. Besides, the majority of herbalists were administered the preparations for three consecutive days or keep treating until the animal recovers if the disease is not acute case.
Most of the recipe was prepared using a single plant in different formulations and administered in different routes depending upon the type of the disease needed to be treated as reported by (78,79,81]. Even though healers used various units of measurements to estimate doses of local medicines such as numbers (e.g., for seeds, fruits,), and cups and glass (e.g., for water during preparation and liquid form of the prepared medicine), plastic jugs, bottles, syringe and guard local called "Buliyaa", no strictly standardized doses of herbal preparations as known for modern veterinary medicine were reported by traditional healers for any of the preparations used to treat livestock ailments in the present study areas. The same ndings were also reported from other studies conducted in different parts of the world [34,50,65,72,84] who found that the lack of precision and standardization in traditional prescriptions of livestock traditional medicine. Hence, further studies on the active ingredients and their dosage measurements in ethnoveterinary preparations scienti cally required as to guide their application.
The highest percentage of (63.4%) medicinal plants were used to treat cattle ailments could also be related to long experience rearing of cattle and the most prevalent diseases affecting cattle populations in the area. In a similar observation, Lulekal et al. [19] indicated that the largest use of ethnoveterinary plants for treating cattle ailments in Ankober District, Amhara Region. However, Sida schimperiana and Artemisia annua L. are being used as medicinal plants for treatment of rabies in dogs. The utilization of relatively few medicinal plants for treatment of poultry, small ruminants, equines and dogs could be associated with the low perception, the low occurrence of diseases affecting and less experience of the herbalists to these species. Like numerous reports on medicinal plants in Ethiopia [14,19,85], this study revealed also that infectious diseases like trypanosomiasis and blackleg were the most cited by informants.
Listeriosis and coenuruses were treated by plant species which were uncommon to the usual list of medicinal plants from Ethiopia. The eight species Jatropha curcas, Carduus chamaecephalus, Datura stramonium, Arisaema enneaphyllum, Pycnostachyus abyssinica, Becium obovatum, Justica schimperiana, and Glycine wightii, showed to heal listeriosis and coenuruses in cattle and sheep.
Values Informant Consensus Factor (Fic) of different use categories of illnesses from this study showed that Fic values of reproductive system, infectious diseases, ectoparasite infestation and miscellaneous (snake biting, poising, bone fracture, fattening and constipation) categories were much higher than Fic value of the two illnesses (non-infectious and respiratory problems). This indicates that people had a greater agreement for plants used to treat diseases related to reproductive problems, infectious diseases and ectoparasite infestations. Consistent with this study, the highest share of similar plant use information within a community for disease of reproductive system and infectious category of [34]; however, in contrast to this study, Lulekal et al. [19] have reported that high ICF in the gastrointestinal disease category in their studies.
The present study determined different plants like Cyphostemma avicans, Pentas schimperi, Eucalyptus globulus L., Croton macrostachyus, and so forth, scored highest delity values and should be further subjected to phytochemical and pharmacological investigation to prove their medicinal e cacy. The highest FL might be related to which the cited plant species has more healing power contributed to the presence of bioactive compounds for the respective ailments. Analysis of the preference ranking exercise also indicated that Azadirachta indica and Eucalyptus globulus L. were the most preferred ethnoveterinary medicinal plants used to treat blackleg, the most commonly reported disease in the study area. This could be attributed to the presence of bioactive compounds against the causative agents of blackleg in these species.

Non-ethnobotanical remedies used in animal disease management
The study found that other products than plants used by the Dawuro people in animal health management. In no case was the whole animals used, but rather body parts or by-products such as, the products and parts of a porcupine, hyena, cattle, bear and aphids (insects) were used by the community in ethnoveterinary practices. Eleven (11) non-plant remedies were used as source of veterinary therapeutic agents include hyena faece, wood ash, honeydew, oils, kerosene, local soap, salt, porcupine meat, dear faece, sharp hot iron or knife, milk, fermented kocho, porridge and the end product of Ensete ventricosum uid traditionally called "Zaalima". Porcupine meat and honey dew (aphids by product) are by far the main source of veterinary remedies: used to treat blackleg.
Nearly similar ethnoveterinary studies conducted elsewhere [35,39,92,93,94] share a similar concern on the knowledge of non-medicinal plant practices found that sharp hot iron or branding for treatment of blackleg and in ammation due to trauma, minerals from bones and salt are used to treat nutritional de ciencies, appetite promotion, and vegetable oil for managing bloat and dermatomycosis. However, hyena feaces, wood ash, dear faeces, porcupine meat, fermented kocho (C'aalaa unc'c'a), the end product of local kocho uid (Zaalima), and honeydew were new or rarely reported nonplant remedies used in ethnoveterinary medicine in Ethiopia. The study undertaken by [92] indicated that traditional knowledge on the use of animals in traditional medicine (ethnomedicine or folk veterinary medicine) needs to be approached as an integrated and holistic structure by various branches of science in order to achieve a truly interdisciplinary understanding of the phenomenon of traditional medicine.
Generally, the documented ethnoveterinary remedies were the promising sources for the discovery of new low-cost drugs that are harmless to the environment and could help in conservation of biodiversity. Also, this study could help for program planners and policy makers to design their development strategy for animal health care policies and food sustainability; and overall socio-economic development of the poor rural people through cultivation and conservation of potential medicinal plant species in the area.

Conclusion
The results of this investigation revealed that the study area has plenty of medicinal plants and non-plant remedies used to treat a wide range of livestock health problems. The average informant consensus factor of (0.614) is high indicating that different treatments are cited for different ailments and the degree of agreement was high. Knowledge of traditional practitioner has to be encouraged and protected from the wrong perception. Strong government policy support, creating successful awareness and training to the herbalists in particular and local community in general to grow medicinal plants which promote sustainable utilization, conservation and application is very crucial. Progressive efforts are vital to integrate modern veterinary health care with ethnoveterinary medicine. Further researches need to be conducted to validate the biological ingredients and test the safety, e cacy, and toxicity since herbal preparations are crude.

Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate
Prior to conducting the study, verbal consent was obtained from all participants. No additional ethics approval was required.

Consent for publication
This manuscript does not contain any individual person's data and further consent for publication is not vital.

Availability of data and materials
The raw data contain the list of all informants' name, and cannot be public in this form.

Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no con ict of interests Funding Not applicable Author's contributions TD performed eld data collection, carried out the main survey work and prepared rst draft of the paper. FB, and TT were separately providing constructive comments to develop nal draft of the paper. All authors involved, read and approved the nal manuscript.
Author's details 1 Figure 1 Study area map. Note: The designations employed and the presentation of the material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Research Square concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This map has been provided by the authors.

Figure 2
Livestock disease categories treated in the study area Methods of treatment preparation in the study area