Prevalence of coccidiosis in crows, peacock and pigeons: insight on poultry farming

Abstract

Coccidiosis is an important disease of poultry affecting poultry farming on a larger scale in the World including Pakistan. To explore the role of other hosts including Crows, Peacock, and Pigeons in spreading Coccidiosis to chickens and other domestic hosts, the current study was planned to evaluate the prevalence of Coccidiosis in Crows, Peacock, and Pigeons in Multan. For this purpose, Faecal samples suspected of coccidiosis were collected from farms, zoos and different outbreak cases by visiting in field in different areas of District Multan. It was found crows and peacocks did not show the prevalence of Eimeria species. While in pigeons, a 52 % prevalence of Eimeria species was found. 62% prevalence was found in females while it is 38% in male pigeons. These results show that Coccidiosis is more prevalent in pigeons than in crows and peacocks. As pigeons are game birds and used to fly all over the areal space of a city, so continuous source of spread of coccidiosis. So, coccidiosis in gaming pigeons should be treated accordingly to prevent the spread of disease in other birds, especially commercial poultry to prevent heavy economic losses.