Prevalence of Poultry Coccidiosis and Associated Risk Factors in Intensive Farm and Individual Small Holder Poultry Farm in Benadir Region, Somalia

Abstract

A cross sectional study was conducted from September2021 to February2022 in Mogadishu, Somalia to determine the prevalence of poultry coccidiosis and associated risk factors in intensive farm and Individual smallholder poultry farm in Benadir region-Somalia. The objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of poultry coccidiosis, to assess the risk factors associated with poultry coccidiosis. However, floatation technique was used for isolation of coccidian oocysts obtained from 384 fecal samples of chicken and the prevalence revealed was 19.8%. There was no statistically significant difference in poultry coccidiosis between the different ages of chicken (P>0.05) Where the young chickens (chicks) had shown slightly higher prevalence (20.4%) than adult chickens (18.8%). The effect of sex on the disease prevalence was assessed and relatively slightly higher prevalence was recorded in male chickens (20%) than female (19.4%). However, the difference between sex groups was not statistically significant (P>0.05). According to the management system of the chickens, the study had shown a significant difference between extensive and intensive management systems, with the extensive system having a higher prevalence (25.5%) than intensive system (14%) with P-value (0.003). There was a significant difference in poultry coccidiosis between the different body condition score of chickens (P<0.05), where those poor body condition (26.6%) are more prevalence than middle (16%) and good (8.8%) chickens. The study also revealed a statistically significant association between infection rate and housing methods with the chickens kept in floor house had a higher prevalence (25.5%) than cage house (14%) with P-value (0.003) However, appropriate control strategies should be designed considering important risk factors such as age, management system and housing system. Especially, focus should be given to biosecurity practices in the prevention and control of coccidiosis, and in addition, further studies are needed to be conducted to identify the prevalent Eimeria species for strategic control.