Poultry Farming: New Perspectives and Applications Chapter – Parasitic Diseases of Chickens

Abstract

Fowls and their eggs provide animal protein for human populations. Parasites are very common in fowls and heavy infection can affect the growth, and egg production, and cause death. Fowls during feeding pick the parasitic infective stage by ingesting contaminated food, and water. There are two groups of parasites infecting fowls: external (ectoparasites) and internal parasites (endoparasites). The clinical findings of the examined affected chickens showed that symptoms vary from healthy to subclinical symptoms. The main clinical signs were dullness, emaciation and weakness, hemorrhagic enteritis, congestion of ceca, mucoid and watery diarrhea Besides. The research refers found 2 species of lice namely Mencanths stramineus and Goniocotes gallinae. One species of soft tick, from genus Aragas persicus, was recorded. While internal parasites included different types of Eimeria oocysts. The current study did not reveal any blood parasites or Cryptosporidium oocysts in all of the examined fowls. Different types of intestinal nematodes which were recovered with Subulura species followed by large roundworms, Ascaridia galli, Heterakis gallinarum, Capillaria. Regarding tapeworms, six species were recorded and identified, which were Raillietina tetragona, R. echinobothrida, R. cesticillus, Fimbriaria fasciolari, Davainea proglottina, and Amoebotaenia sphenoides.