This study, aims at determining the prevalence of haemo and gastrointestinal (GI) parasites of small ruminants in Kano as well as the effect of the parasites on the packed cell volume (PCV) and total plasma proteins (TPP) of the infected animals. Blood and faecal samples were collected randomly from 103 Yankassa sheep and 97 Kano brown goats. The faecal samples were examined by simple floatation technique for the presence of helminthes eggs and Coccidia oocysts while the blood samples were examined using the thin blood smear, wet mount, haematocrit centrifugation technique (HCT) and mice inoculation test for the presence of both intra and extracellular haemoparasites. The overall parasitic prevalence of 95.51% and 91.75% were observed in the sampled sheep and goats respectively. Also 74.76% of the sheep and 74.23% of the goats had only GI parasitic infection, while 18.45% of the sheep and 17.52% of the goats were concurrently infected with both GI and haemoparasites. However, only 1.94% of the sheep and no goat was habouring only haemoparasite. Strongyles, Coccidia and Moniezia were the GI parasites identified, with the highest prevalence observed with Coccidia and the least with Moniezia in both the sheep and goats. The haemoparasites recorded were Anaplasma ovis, Babesia ovis and Theileria ovis with A. ovis being the highest and B. ovis the least prevalent in both the sheep and goats. Significant decrease (p0.05) to that of the uninfected animals.
Key words: Goat, parasites, prevalence and sheep
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