A survey of commonly used herbal drugs in veterinary practice in southwest Nigeria

Herbal medicine is undoubtedly the oldest form of medicine, with thousands of years of history behind it, but it's use in Veterinary practice is in its infancy although alternative remedies is rapidly gaining popularity for the treatment of a variety of' ailment in the human race. In Nigeria, there has been little or no documented information on herbal drugs used in Veterinary practice in the treatment of animal diseases. This study was therefore designed to investigate the extent of the use of herbal drugs amongst animal health practitioners, farmers, and pet owners. The efficacy and adverse effects of the herbal drugs used were also studied. Data were collected in two selected state of south western Nigeria from animal health personnel and Veterinary Doctors using structured questionnaires, and the results statistically analyzed using SPSS computer package. The result showed that most of the data came from Veterinary clinic age between 1 to 9 years. 87% of the people interviewed indicated that they use herbal drugs. Herbal drugs used were found to be effective in poultry, small animals, (dogs and Cat) and large animals especially ruminant. The herbal drugs used included charmade, charmil, diamuket, keel-out, livfit, livjivan, newcharm, stressroak and zerokeet. Newcharm was used for skin diseases, livjivan, used as liver tonic, stressroak used as anti-stress and immune-modulator and livftit used against aflatoxicosis. Most of them were administered orally or tropically and could be used singly or in combination with other drugs. Even when they are used in combination, no adverse drugs reactions were observed.