Traditional Uses of Plants by Indigenous Communities for Veterinary Practices at Kurram District, Pakistan

Abstract

Background: In Kurram district of Pakistan, people use medicinal plants to cure a variety of livestock diseases. This study was conducted with the aims to document the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants used in veterinary practices in the district.Methods: Ethnoveterinary data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 97 participants that were purposedly chosen at random locations and data was quantitatively analyzed using relative frequency of citation (RFC) and use value (UV).Results: In total 81 plants belonging to 43 families were recorded. Asteraceae and Lamiaceae were the most cited botanical families. The plants were used to treat 28 livestock diseases. Among the plant parts, leaves were the most used parts (38 %) followed by the flowers (13 %), seeds (10 %), stem (10 %), fruit (8 %), and roots (7 %). The results showed that (22) plants were used for digestive diseases, (10) for skin problems, (8) against flatulence, (7) as anthelmintic and as refrigerant, and (4) to treat diarrhea and as anti-inflammatory.Conclusions: The study provides an inventory of traditional ethnoveterinary plants from Kurram district of Pakistan for further phytochemical and pharmacological studies in order to explore their active ingredients.Keywords: Quantitative study, Folk knowledge, Livestock, Ethnoveterinary medicines, Pakistan.