Caecal coccidiosis in broiler chickens is caused by Eimeria tenella, a parasite that causes severe mortality and huge economic loss. E. tenella exists in two stages, namely, sporulated and unsporulated stages, and The infective sporulated stage causes infection and leads to caecal coccidiosis. An in vitro study was carried out to understand the effect of phenolic disinfectant (PD) on the sporulation suppression of E. tenella oocyst. Unsporulated oocysts of E. tenella from infected broiler birds were used for the experiments. The groups consisted of control (C, saline), negative control (NC, sodium hydroxide), positive control (PC, ammonium hydroxide), T1 (PD at 5 mL/L), and T2 (PD at 10 mL/L). The percentage of oocysts that were unsporulated, sporulating, and sporulated was quantified, and then, the inhibitory activity (IA) was calculated. A higher percentage of sporulated oocysts was observed in C (71%) and NC (65%). Groups such as PC, T1, and T2 showed 3.89%, 38.44%, and 9.33% of sporulated oocysts, which were found to be lesser than C and NC. The IA of the groups was observed to be 2.96%, 91.30%, 52.25%, and 70.58% for NC, PC, T1, and T2, respectively (P < 0.05). Based on these results, we infer that PD suppresses E. tenella sporulation and could be used to prevent coccidiosis in poultry farms.
Key words: Coccidiosis; Disinfectants; Poultry; Eimeria; Sporulation;
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