Abstract

Dashe, Y. G*, Raji, M. A, Abdu, P. A and Oladele, B. S

Many bacterial agents have been incriminated in cases of fowl cholera outbreaks in chickens. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Aeromonas hydrophila infection in chickens affected by fowl cholera between November, 2010 and October, 2011 in Jos, Nigeria. A total of 2000 samples consisting of bone marrow, heart, liver, lung and spleen (400 each) were aseptically collected from 400 clinically sick chickens suspected to be suffering from fowl cholera and cultured for Pasteurella multocida and Aeromonas hydrophila organisms. Four hundred oropharyngeal swabs were also collected from 400 apparently healthy chickens for bacteriological analysis. Swab from each sample was cultured on 7% defibrinated sheep blood, MacConkey and casein sucrose yeast agar. Presumptive colonies of P. multocida and A. hydrophila were subjected to biochemical characterization and Microbact test. P. multocida 20 (1.0%) was isolated from all the tissue samples of clinically sick chickens, while A. hydrophila 11 (0.5%) was recovered from bone marrow, heart and liver of the sick chickens. P. multocida 5 (1.25%) was isolated from oropharynx of apparently healthy chickens, while A. hydrophila was not isolated at all from the apparently healthy chickens. It was concluded that A. hydrophila agent could have contributed to the aggravated clinical signs and mortality observed in clinically sick chickens within the study period.