Economic impact assessment and disease prevalence of coccidiosis in broilers around tarai region

Abstract

Coccidiosis is a cosmopolitan problem caused by apicomplexa protozoa of the genus Eimeria. Heavily infected poultry birds that show severe clinical signs and coccidiostat resistance are causing important economic losses. The present study aimed to investigate the economic impact of coccidiosis in Broilers around Tarai region. The Economic impact assessment due to coccidiosis was conducted in commercial broiler farms during the period from June, 2015 to January, 2016. A total of ten commercial poultry farms were screened for the presence of coccidiosis amongst them six broiler farms (B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6) were confirmed to be positive for coccidiosis with the disease prevalence of 60% and it was observed that the prevalence of coccidiosis was higher during the monsoon season particularly during the months of July to September. The prevalence was recorded to be highest during August- September followed by June-July and equal in months of October- November and December- January with 2 outbreaks reported during the month of June-July (33.3%), 3 in August-September (50%) and 1 during December- January (16.6%). The major economic loss was recorded due to reduced body weight gain (49.06% - 95.7%) followed by increased feed conversion ratio (4.87% - 19.2%), mortality (1.33% - 58.72%), chemotherapy (1.45% -32.5%) and chemoprophylaxis (0.05%- 8.72%). However some variation was also observed in 3 farms (B1, B2 and B6), wherein, farm B1, there was concurrent infection of Infectious Bursal Disease and therefore the loss due to mortality was higher as compared to poor Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR), in farm B2 loss due to chemotherapy was higher compared to poor FCR, whereas in other farm (B6) no subclinical form of coccidiosis was recorded.