Effect of experimental Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale infection along with live infectious bronchitis vaccination in broiler chickens

ABSTRACT Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale (ORT), a bacterium causing respiratory tract infection, has led to a significant problem in the intensive poultry production in Egypt. Polymerase chain reaction-amplified 784-bp specific ORT DNA fragments were found in 7 ORT isolates from lungs, air sacs, and tracheas of commercial broilers or layers in Egypt in 2015. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of the live variant IBV 4/91 with ORT infection. A total of 120 14-d-old broiler chickens (Cobb 500) were equally divided into 4 groups for experimental infection in a complete randomized design. Group 1 was infected with ORT strain and live infectious bronchitis vaccine (IBV 4/91) simultaneously; group 2 was infected with the bacterial strain alone; group 3 was vaccinated only with IBV 4/91, and group 4 was the non-vaccinated and non-infected control group. The respiratory signs, post-mortem lesions (tracheitis and pneumonia) and histopathological findings of lungs, trachea, and air sacs in the experimentally infected broiler chickens appeared to be more prominent in the chickens of group 1 than group 2. With respect to body weight, weight gain, feed conversion rate, and Ornithobacterium re-isolation, there was a difference (P ≤ 0.05) among the chickens of group 1 and the other groups. This reveals that the use of live infectious bronchitic vaccines, which is a common practice in the local Egyptian field of production, may concomitantly increase the pathogenicity of ORT in broiler chickens.