Prevalence of Hepatic Coccidiosis in Rabbits - A Post-mortem Analysis

摘要

Rabbit farming has emerged as an important livestock enterprise in many parts of temperate and sub-tropical areas of India, especially the southern region; Tamil Nadu, Kerela and Karnataka. Coccidiosis is an ubiquitous protozoan infection of animals seriously impairing their growth and food utilization and it causes significant mortality in rabbits. Hepatic coccidiosis (Eimeria stiedae) is one of the most pathogenic coccidian protozoan in rabbits causing severe coccidiosis and increased mortality (Hauptman et al., 2001). Rabbit is the only animal that suffer from hepatic form of coccidiosis. There is scanty report of intestinal Coccidiosis, but there are no reports of hepatic coccidiosis in rabbits in Tamil Nadu. The present paper based on a 3 yearperspective study, records spontaneous hepatic coccidiosis, in various breeds of rabbits at necropsy and attempts to elucidate their gross pathological lesions correlated with histo-pathological findings vis-a-vis identification of oocysts in rabbits atLivestock Research Station, Kattupakkam.