Field trial of medicinal plant, Bidens pilosa, against eimeriosis in broilers.

Cicero Lee-Tian Chang,Wen-Chin Yang,Thangarasu Muthamilselvan,Cheng-Ying Yang

doi:10.1038/srep24692

Abstract

Eimeriosis is a severe protozoan disease in poultry. Because of increasing concern about drug residue and drug resistance with the use of anticoccidial drugs, natural products are emerging as an alternative and complementary approach to control avian eimeriosis. Our previous publication showed that feed supplemented with B. pilosa (BP) was effective at combating chicken eimeriosis in experimental settings. However, its efficacy against chicken eimeriosis under field conditions is not known. Here, we investigated the efficacy of BP against eimeriosis on an organic chicken farm. We found that feed supplemented with BP, at the dose of 0.025% of feed or more, significantly reduced Eimeria infection. This treatment increased body weight gain and reduced feed conversion ratio, leading to superior growth performance. It lowered morbidity/mortality rate, decreased oocysts per gram of feces and gut pathology and augmented the anticoccidial index. Collectively, these data demonstrated the potential of BP to control chicken eimeriosis on chicken farms. BP can, therefore, be used as an effective means to control eimeriosis.

Highlights

Excreted oocysts, type of stool, morbidity/mortality rate, gut lesions, and the anticoccidial index of the chickens were investigated
Morphological and molecular characterization revealed that seven Eimeria species, E. acervulina, E. brunetti, E. maxima, E. necatrix, E. praecox, E. mitis and E. tenella were present on the farm
We found that 33.4%, 6.3%, and 7.2% of the chickens in the Control, low-dose BP product (LBPP) and high-dose BP product (HBPP) groups, respectively, were culled because of morbidity and mortality (Fig. 1b)

Summary

Introduction

Excreted oocysts, type of stool, morbidity/mortality rate, gut lesions, and the anticoccidial index of the chickens were investigated. We found that 33.4%, 6.3%, and 7.2% of the chickens in the Control, LBPP and HBPP groups, respectively, were culled because of morbidity and mortality (Fig. 1b). The chickens, fed with Control, LBPP and HBPP diets had an average FCR of 3.27 ± 0.04, 1.51 ± 0.02 and 1.93 ± 0.03, respectively (Table 3).

Results

Conclusion