Prevalence of Poultry Coccidiosis and its Associated Risk Factors in and around Haramaya District, Ethiopia.
Poultry refers to domestic birds such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, guinea fowl, peasants, pigeons, and more recently ostriches which kept for meat or egg production.1-3 In Africa, village poultry
contributes over 70% of poultry products and 20% of animal protein intake. In East Africa, over 80% of the human population lives in rural areas and over 75% of these households keep indigenous chickens. The poultry industry occupies an important position in the provision of animal protein (meat and egg) to man as well as manure for crops and generally plays a vital role in the national economy as a revenue provider and provides employment.
In developing countries, poultry production offers an opportunity to feed the fast-growing human population and to provide income for resource-poor farmers. Ethiopia has a large population of chickens estimated to be 48.89 million with native chickens of non-descriptive breeds, a hybrid of chickens, and exotic breeds of chickens mainly kept in urban and peril-urban areas representing 96.6%, 0.55% and 2.8%, respectively.
Coccidiosis is an infectious disease of the digestive tract of poultry caused by a microscopic protozoan parasite of the genus Emeria, phylum Apicomplexa, which are commonly known as coccidia. In Ethiopia, coccidiosis is endemic, causing great economic losses, particularly in young growing birds in all production systems. Coccidiosis affects the chickens in both clinical and subclinical forms.
Factors contributing to outbreaks of clinical coccidiosis include litter moisture exceeding 30%, immune suppression, sub-optimal inclusion of anti-coccidiosis in feed, and environmental and management stress such as overstocking, poor feeding systems, and inadequate ventilation.20,21
Vet Med Open J. 2023; 8(1): 9-17. doi: 10.17140/VMOJ-8-172
