Cross sectional epidemiological investigation on the prevalence of gastrointestinal helminths in free range chickens in Narsingdi district, Bangladesh.

Rural poultry production in Bangladesh is mainly based on the free range or backyard poultry production system. This backyard poultry plays a vital tool for poverty alleviation as well as for empowerment of poor women of this country. However, this production system has disadvantage of susceptibility to many diseases including higher burden of parasitic infection. Therefore this cross sectional epidemiological investigation was done to determine the prevalence and distribution of gastrointestinal helminths in Narsingdi district, Bangladesh. To conduct this study a total of 150 chickens from three different villages of Narsingdi district, Bangladesh (50 chickens per village) were collected by random sampling method and killed by cervical disarticulation. Thereafter, all the chickens were necropsied and gastrointestinal tracts were examined macroscopically for the presence helminth infection. In total two nematode (Ascaridia galli, Heterakis gallinarum,) and one cestode (Raillietina spp.) were identified by post mortem examination. Raillietina spp. was detected as the most prevalent helminth species (86-92 %) followed by A. galli (70-86 %), and H. gallinarum (70-76 %) in studied villages. In some chickens petechial hemorrhage were observed in the small intestinal wall which was associated with the A. galli infection and for some birds white tiny nodules were detected in case of H. gallinarum infection. No significant difference in parasite prevalence was observed between male and female bird as well as among three studied villages (P > 0.05). We observed that most of chickens were infected with more than one species of parasites. This finding suggests that the poultry production system in rural areas of Bangladesh and the environmental conditions are very favourable for the transmission and persistence of the parasite species in rural areas of Bangladesh.