Prevalence of Swine Gastrointestinal Parasites in Four Selected Local Government Areas of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

Gastrointestinal parasitic infections in swine are one of the major challenges in pig production in Nigeria. It causes substantial reproductive losses, poor reproductive performance and production in swine industry. Internal parasites are known to deteriorate the wellbeing of pigs by robbing the essential nutrients that are required for optimum reproduction and productivity. It also injured some vital organs which play key role in metabolic activities and assimilation process. The consequences are anorexia, poor growth rate, anaemia, emaciation, infertility and condemnation of affected organs after slaughter. The study was designed to collect two hundred feacal samples from 4 local government area (Laminga, Tammah, Nasarawa and Kusa) of Nasarawa state between (March to July 2015). Fifty samples were randomly collected from each local government areas within the study period. The samples collected were evaluated microscopically for different prevalence of gastro intestinal parasites GIT in pigs. Five species of gastrointestinal parasites were identified with prevalence of 13.5 % for Ascaris suum and strongyloides while Fasciola, trichuris suis cyst and Oesophagustomum oocyst had a prevalence of 7.5 % and 2.5 % respectively. A prevalence of 61.5 % was observed as overall species prevalence in the 200 fecal samples analysed. Therefore, there is a need for combined efforts to control parasites infections for optimum production of pigs and prevention of zoonotic helminthiasis.