The aim of this study was to determine the abortion rate and seroprevalence of brucellosis and salmonellosis of some of the sheep herds in Elazig region. A total of 15.255 pregnant sheep from 47 ranches were evaluated. Presence of brucella and salmonella were investigated through a total of 498 serums from 433 of 1722 sheep with abortion and 65 sheep without abortion. Moreover, information regarding the number of animals in each ranch, race, time of abortion and the history of recurrent abortion were also collected.

The presence of salmonella and brucella was determined with slide agglutination and rose-bengal tests (RBPT), respectively. Serums with positive results with agglutination were further processed with brucella tube agglutination test to determine the antibody titer.

The rate of abortion was found as 11.29% in the study. Overall brucella positivity was 3% of which 2.08% were in 1/20 and 0.92% were in 1/40 titer. The rate of salmonella positivity was 5.77%. Most of the abortion cases were in 3 and 4 years of age groups. Abortion rate of Morkaraman and Akkaraman races were 12.53% and 10.73% respectively.

In conclusion, abortion resulted in important economic losses although the abortion rate in Elazig region was not very high. In addition, brucellosis and salmonellosis did not play an important role in abortion cases and investigation of the other factors including diseases, care and nutrition may decrease the number of cases.