-

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to compare the effects of anticoccidial drugs with an attenuated vaccine (IracocTM) in control of coccidiosis, body weight and feed efficiency of male broiler chicks. Two hundred and twenty five day-old male broiler chicks were randomly divided into three treatment groups, each groups contained three replicates. Each repliate allocated in separated floor pen using deep litter system. Treatment one fed with a ration supplemented 200 ppm Diclazuril, treatment two received Iracoc vaccine through drinking water at third day of life. The vaccine was included four precocious lines covering the four pathogenic species of Eimeria (E. acervulina, E. maxima, E. necatrix and E. tenella). Treatment three did not received any anti-coccidial supplements or vaccines, as a control. Chickens in all of the treatments were challenged orally by a mixture of oocystes of four mentioned pathogenic species of Eimeria at the end of third weeks of age. Flock was monitored for signs of disease and mortality. Fecal samples were collected and assessed for oocystes content. Body weight (BW), feed intake (Fl) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were determined by the end of third, sixth and seventh weeks of age. Results showed that the number of oocystes per gram of feces (OPG) in control group was significantly more than two other groups (P<0.05), throughout the post-infection days, but there were no significant differences between vaccinated and anti-coccidial supplemented groups (p significant differences among all of the treatments (p

Keywords