Vol. 7, Issue 4 (2018)

Author(s):
Krutanjali Swain, Sukhdeep Vohra, Arun K Sangwan, Pradeep Kumar, Suresh Kumar and Abhilash Routray

Abstract:
The present study report the influence of epidemiological factors like age, sex, season, faecal consistency and rearing system on prevalence of Cryptosporidium species in buffalo calves below three month of age from Haryana state. A total of 402 faecal samples from the calves were stained by Modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining (MZN) method. Thirty five samples were found positive with prevalence percent of 8.7%. Age wise comparison showed a significantly high prevalence in calves between the age group of 16-30 days. Prevalence of cryptosporidiosis was higher during rainy (12%) season as compared to autumn (9.3%), winter (7.9%) and summer (6.8%) seasons. Depending on the consistency of dung, the highest prevalence was observed in mucus filled bloody samples. Female calves (10.17%) showed slightly higher prevalence rate than male animals(7.6%). In relation to rearing system, significantly (p<0.05) higher prevalence was observed in organized farms (26.7%) as compared to unorganized farms (6.44%). In conclusion, the prevalence of Cryptosporidium in dairy calves should be correlated with the factors like age, sex, season, dung consistency and rearing system of the animal to arrive at a reliable epidemiological data on bovine cryptosporidiosis in Haryana.