ORAL ADMINISTRATION OF ALOE VERA, BEETROOT AND THEIR COMBINATION ON COCCIDIA OOCYST IN BROILER CHICKENS

Abstract

Coccidiosis is one of the deleterious and the most common diseases in the poultry industry with detrimental impacts on growth performance and farmers income. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of aloe vera, beet root and their combinations on coccidia oocyst in Broiler chickens. A total of 120-day old chicks were used for the experiment. The experimental animal consisted of four treatments and three replicates, treatment 1 is the control group without the test ingredient, treatment 2 contained administration of Aloe vera extract at 30mLs/litre of water, while T3 contained the combination of Aloe vera and beetroot at 15mLs each, T4 contained the administration of beet root at 30mLs/litre; the administration lasted for a period of 6weeks. The test ingredients were administered prophylactically as the birds were not infected with coccidia oocyst or given anti-cocci vaccine prior to the administration; moreover, antibiotics were not given on arrival during the two weeks of brooding period. Examination of coccidia oocyst from the faecal samples was carried out according to McMaster procedure and was examined microscopically. Data obtained were subjected to one way analysis of variance and significant mean separated. 100 g of oocyst egg count per gramme was recorded for the control group and 200 g for treatment 4 that contained beet root. However, treatments 3 and 4 were free of coccidia oocyst. The study concluded that administration of Aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis Miller) at 15 and 30 mLs into a litre of water can serve as prophylactic treatment in Broiler chickens