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Article History

Received: 28 December 2018

Accepted: 11 March 2019

First Online: 18 March 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Approval for this study was given by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Postgraduate committee of the University of Nairobi. Informed consent was received from all the willing participating farmers and farm managers. Since the information collected for this study was not of a sensitive nature, and the procedures performed on the animals being minimally invasive (rectal palpation and collection of blood samples from the coccygeal vein), the consent received from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Postgraduate committee was deemed sufficient when reference is made to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. In addition, at the time of the study, this committee was the only committee in the University of Nairobi mandated to give approval for research in animals.With regards to the cattle used in this study, all of them were privately owned by individual farmers or institutions. Only farmers/farms willing to participate in the study were recruited after giving informed written consent, after the objectives as well as the potential benefits of performing this study to the Kenyan dairy industry were explained to them in detail.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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