COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PREVALANCE OF GASTROINTESTINAL ENDOPARASITES IN INSTITUTIONAL HERDS OF NILI RAVI BUFFALO

Abstract

Gastrointestinal endoparasites have a great impact on livestock production. Current
research is conducted to realize the proper prevalence of gastrointestinal parasitical incursion in three
institutional buffalo herds in the Punjab Province. A total of 758 fecal samples were examined in farm
and health laboratory, Buffalo Research Institute for a time duration of one year (July 2017 to June
2018) from three institutional herds. The fecal samples collected from Livestock experiment station
Bhunikey, Chak katora and Haroonabad were 227,208 and 323 respectively. Out of which 311 (41.02
%) were found positive and different for parasites during the current duration of study. The
pervasiveness of different parasites including trematodes, nematodes, and diverse infestation in
buffaloes at Livestock Experiment Station Bhunikey was 25.50% (58/227), 14.90%(34/227), and
4.80%(11/227) , while at Livestock Experiment Station Chak Katora it was 19.81%(64/323),
17.64%(57/323) and 3.7%(12/323) percent respectively. Livestock Experiment Station Haroonabad
showed the prevalence of trematodes, nematodes and mixed infections as 24.51 %( 51/208), 6.70 %(
14/208) and 4.80 %( 10/208). Maximum prevalence was observed from November to February
(trematodes 24.01%, nematodes 13.81% and mixed infestation 3.4%) while minimum parasitism was
observed from July to October (trematodes 20%, nematodes 3.5% and mixed infestation 1.2%). The
study that is conducted has varied results revealed that the occurrence of different gastrointestinal
parasites in buffaloes is quite severe causing economical losses by reducing milk production. By
keeping focus on this factor, a proper planned and strategic way of treatment and control program may
be designed to cover and control gastrointestinal parasitic contagions in buffaloes.