PREVALENCE OF GASTROINTESTINAL PARASITISM IN UNDER ONE YEAR OLD CALVES IN CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH.

Abstract

A two months long (January’2013 to February’2013) prevalence study on gastrointestinal(GI) parasitism in under one year old calves was conducted at two different places of Chittagong district, Bangladesh. A total of 60 fecal samples were collected randomly from different farms of the representative location. Samples were examined by routine coproscopical methods. Among the 60 samples, 9 samples were negative and the rest 51 samples were positive to GI parasites and therefore the overall prevalence of gastrointestinal parasitic infections was estimated as 85% in the study population. Among different gastrointestinal parasitic infections, prevalence of Balantidium coli spp infection was the highest (28%) followed by Moneizia spp infection (22%). The lowest parasitic infection (5%) was recorded for Trichostrongylus spp and Haemonchus spp (8% each) infection. Chi square test was conducted to identify if the prevalence of various GI parasitic infections are varying with different levels of categorical variables; Toxocara and Trichuris infection was found significantly varying with sex of the calves. T-test was performed to test if the mean age of the positive and negative group of animals is different no significant difference was revealed by the analysis in this present study. Besides some limitations (e.g. smaller sample size), this study estimated the prevalence of a range of gastrointestinal parasitic infections in calves which are responsible for a gradual production loss to farmers. The information gathered by the present study could be used as a baseline data for further extended study.