Magnitude of Coccidia Infection in Small Scale Broiler Chicken Farms of Rural Assam (India)

The objective of the present study was to access the field situation with respect to coccidia and coccidiosis in broiler chickens raised in rural Assam through a questionnaire based survey, on farm necropsy and laboratory investigation. Analysis of farm history obtained from 48 small scale broiler farms consisting of 34 integration and 14 non-integration farms managed under deep litter system revealed awareness on coccidia among 27.08% farmers with occasional occurrence of the disease in their farms. However, examination of faecal and litter samples, intestinal lesions and mucosal scrapings revealed the farm positivity of coccidia to be as high as 83.33% with 44.44% of the farms witnessing mortality due to coccidiosis. At birds’ level, 62.39% broilers were found to be coccidia positive and mortality due to coccidiosis was diagnosed in 29.36% carcasses through lesion study and laboratory investigation. Mortality due to coccidiosis was higher in integration farms (29.17%) than in non-integration farms (12.5%). The higher the flock size, higher was the chance of occurrence of coccidiosis. The disease was diagnosed throughout the year. However, its record in the wet season (22.92%) was found slightly higher than that in the dry season (18.75%) of the year. The study indicated high prevalence of coccidia infection in both clinical (29.36%) and subclinical farms (33.03%) and mortality due to caecal coccidiosis (62.50%) was much higher than the intestinal coccidiosis (37.50%). Occurrence of the disease at the rate much higher than the farmers’ perception level indicated lack of awareness on the disease and poor managemental procedure adopted in the geographical region where the environmental conditions were optimum for the propagation of coccidia parasites.