Clinicopathologic Studies on Liver Coccidiosis in Rabbits

Summary:- Coccidia appear to be ubiquitous in distribution, it acts asthe principle pathogens through the world. Coccidia are host strictand organ specific. Two forms of coccidia can infest rabbits. Thefirst is hepatic coccidiosis caused by E. stiedae which parasitizethe bile duct epithelium, while the second form is the intestinalcoccidiosis, caused by several species of Eimeria and they rarelyfound in pure infestation.Forty five New Zealand white rabbits of both sexes wereemployed in this work. The practice of this work is divided intothree experiments. The first experiment included twenty rabbits(45 days old), they were divided into 4 equal groups. The firstthree groups were orally infested with E. stiedae (10,OOO/2ml)sporulated oocysts whereas the 4th group was infested at a dose5,OOO/2ml sporulated oocysts. All the studied rabbits of the 1stexperiment were slaughtered at 10th, 20th, 30th and 90th dayspost infestation.Ten New Zealand rabbits (2-3 months old) in the secondexperiment were naturally infested with intestinal coccidiosis,while other ten New Zealand white rabbits (2-3 months old) werenaturally infested with both hepatic and intestinal coccidiosis.The rabbits employed in this experiment were slaughtered afterappearing of the clinical signs and oocysts in their feces.The last five New Zealand white rabbits (45 days old) whichwere free from coccidiosis or any disease were considered ascontrol group.