Respiratory Cryptosporidiosis in a Peacock Chick

Abstract

Respiratory cryptosporidiosis was diagnosed in a 2-week-old peacock chick, whose symptoms were a gurgling respiration, coughing and sneezing, and a serous oculonasal discharge. Light microscopy detected cryptosporidial-like organisms attached to the surface of conjunctival, nasal-sinus, and tracheal-epithelial cells, and electron microscopy demonstrated stages typical of cryptosporidial trophozoites, schizonts, and oocysts. About 30 other in-contact peacock chicks also developed the same clinical symptoms, and all died despite treatment with oxytetracycline HCl at 200 ppm in the drinking water.

Cryptosporidiosis in birds ‐ A review

“…Cryptosporidium has been reported in chickens (Tyzzer, 1929;Fletcher and Munnell, 1975;Dhillon et al, 1981;Randall, 1982;Itakura et al, 1984;Gorham et al, 1987;Goodwin, 1988b;Goodwin and Brown, 1988a, b), a duck (Mason, 1986), a black-throated finch (Gardiner and Grimes, 1984), a domestic goose (Proctor and Kemp, 1974), a jungle fowl (Randall, 1986b), redlored parrots (Doster et al, 1979), a parakeet (Goodwin, 1988a), peacocks (Mason and Hartley, 1980), pheasants (Whittington and Wilson, 1985;Randall, 1986a), quail (Tham et al, 1982;Hoerr et al, 1986;Ritter et al, 1986;Guy etal, 1987) and turkeys (Slavin, 1955;Hoerr etal, 1978;Glisson et al, 1984;Tarwid et al, 1985;Ranck and Hoerr, 1987; from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. There is no published information on the incidence and distribution of Oyptosporidium in bird hosts other than domestic poultry.…”

“…Cryptosporidium can infect the nasal tubinates, nasopharynx, sinuses, larynx, trachea, lungs, air sacs and palpebral conjunctiva in chickens, duck, turkeys, peacocks, pheasants, quail and jungle fowl (Hoerr et al, 1978;Mason and Hartley, 1980;Dhillon et al, 1982;Randall, 1982;Tham et al, 1982;Glissons/., 1984;Itakura et al, 1984;Tarwid et al, 1985;Whittington and Wilson, 1985;Current et al, 1986;Mason, 1986;Randall, 1986a, b;Ranck and Hoerr, 1987; (Table 4). Cryptosporidium infection is usually accompanied by respiratory, ocular or other signs of disease.…”

Cryptosporidia in the bursa of Fabricius – a correlation with mortality rates in broiler chickens1

“…Cryptosporidia are protozoan parasites that infect humans, other mammals and birds (Current, 1986;Randall, 1982;Thamef al., 1982;Mason and Hartley, 1980). In immune competent mammals, cryptosporidiosis produces a mild gastroenteritis with short term diarrhoea (Current, 1986).…”

“…In immune deficient mammals, the disease may be life threatening and there is no effective therapy (Current, 1986). In birds, cryptosporidial infections have been reported in both the respiratory tract and the bursa of Fabricius (Itakura et al, 1984;Randall, 1982;Mason and Hartley, 1980;Tham et al, 1982;Fletcher et al, 1975). In infected birds, there may be no clinical signs or respiratory disease.…”

“…Although there are numerous reports of cryptosporidial infections in several avian species, many are isolated case reports (Itakura et al, 1984;Mason and Hartley, 1980;Tham et al, 1982) or descriptions of the ultrastructure morphology (Itakura et al, 1985). There are few reports on the prevalence and significance of infections with cryptosporidia in commercially raised poultry.…”