Prevalence of Gastrointestinal Helminth Parasites of Local Chicken Slaughtered at Jalingo Market, Taraba State, Nigeria

Gastrointestinal parasites constitute a serious problem to poultry production in Africa. But often times they are usually ignored by the majority of farmers. Whereas, it is one of the major leading causes of ill-health and high mortality rates in the poultry industry. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites of chicken slaughtered at the Jalingo market. A total of 500 gastrointestinal tracts of local chicken comprising of 250 from males and 250 from females were collected from the poultry slaughtering and dressing section of the Jalingo market, and screened for gastrointestinal helminths using the saturated sodium chloride floatation techniques. An overall prevalence of 28.6% (143/500) was recorded with a prevalence of 16.8% (84/500) in males and 11.8% (59/500) females. Nine different species parasites comprising five nematodes and four cestodes, were recorded. Nematodes were the most predominant intestinal parasite with a prevalence rate of 89 (62.2%). And Ascaridia galli 45 (50.5%) was found to be the most prevalent nematode. Other nematodes observed were Capillaria annulata 13.4% (12/89), Heterakis gallinarum 2.2% (2/89), Strongyloides avium 32.5% (29/89), and Syngamus trachea 1.1% (1/89) having the lowest prevalence. Railliatina tetragona 57.4% (31/143) was the most prevalent cestode recorded. Other Cestodes were Hymenolepis carioca 27.7% (15/54), Raillietina cesticellus 12.9% (7/54), and Davainea proglottina 1.8% (1/54). No trematode was recorded in this study. This study showed that nematodes and cestodes were the common helminth parasites in local chicken. There is therefore the need for educating the farmers on the impact of gastrointestinal parasite infection in chicken and the need to institute good management practices so as to reduce their effects on productivity. Sex of the chicken had no statistically significant difference (X2 = 6.12, df = 1; P > 0.05) on the prevalence of helminths. Keywords: Prevalence, Domestic chicken, Gastrointestinal tract helminth, Jalingo, Nigeria