Toxicity of Aqueous Extracts of Sacoglottis gabonensis, Azadirachta indica And Their Efficacy Against Eimeria tenella and Eimeria maxima Infection in Broiler Chickens

ABSTRACT

The Toxicity of Aqueous Extracts of Sacoglottis gabonensis, Azadirachta indica and their Efficacy Against Eimeria tenella and Eimeria maxima infection in Broiler Chickens were studied. A total of 260 broiler chickens were used for this study. They were purchased at day old and maintained on a deep litter system in the Animal House of the Department of Veterinary Parasitology and Entomology University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The birds were acclimatized for four weeks and routinely vaccinated against major avian viral diseases before the commencement of the study. Ninety broiler chicks each were used for both acute and chronic toxicity tests and were respectively treated intra-peritoneally and orally (for 28 days) with graded doses (200, 400, 800, 1200, 1600 mg/kg) of aqueous extracts of stem bark of Sacoglottis gabonensis (SG), leaves of Azadirachta indica (AI) and equal mixture of the two extracts (MX) in distilled water. The in vitro anti-sporulation effect of the extracts was studied using various dilutions (100, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 mg/ml) and were compared with those of Embazin-forteR (EF) at 30g/50l of water, AmproliumR (AM) at 100g/250l of drinking water and 2% potassium dichromate solutions (PDS). The in vivo anti-coccidial efficacy of the extracts, MX, EF and AM were compared in 50 broilers infected with a mixture of Eimeria tenella (80%) and E. maxima (20%) oocysts. The birds were randomly assigned into ten groups (A – J) of five birds each. Groups A - I were infected with 200,000 sporulated oocysts of the Eimeria species (dose determined through a pilot study) while group J was not infected. Groups A, B and C were treated once with SG, AI and MX respectively while groups D, E and F were treated for 5 consecutive days with SG, AI and MX, respectively. Groups G and H were treated with AM and EF respectively while groups I and J were untreated. Live weight, clinical signs, pathological lesions, packed cell volume (PCV), red blood cell (RBC) and white blood cell (WBC) counts, hemoglobin concentration (Hb), total protein (TP) and serum albumin (SA) levels were determined following standard procedures. Data generated were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance. Variant means were separated post hoc with Duncan’s Multiple range test. Significance was accepted at p