Journal of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine Volume 1. Page 39-45. Published 27th August, 2016 www.integrityresjournals.org/jasvm/index.html Full Length Research Prevalence of Haemoparasites in village chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) slaughtered at poultry markets in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria J. R. Lawal 1* , A. M. Bello 1 , S. Y. Balami 2 , J. Dauda 3 , K. D. Malgwi 2 , K. U. Ezema 2 , M. Kasim 1 and A. A. Biu 4 1 Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maiduguri, P.M.B 1069, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. 2 Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maiduguri, P.M.B 1069, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. 3 Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maiduguri, P.M.B 1069, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. 4 Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maiduguri, P.M.B 1069, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. *Corresponding author. Email: rabanajallailudeen@yahoo.com Copyright © 2016 Lawal et al. This article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Received 25th July, 2016; Accepted 21st August, 2016 ABSTRACT: The present study on prevalence of haemoparasites in village chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) in Maiduguri comprising the Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC) and Jere district of Borno State, Nigeria was done between November, 2015 and January, 2016. A total of 200 blood samples were collected from chickens of both sexes slaughtered in poultry market/dressing slabs located in Custom market and Monday market Maiduguri and transported to the teaching and research laboratory department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maiduguri Nigeria, for analysis. Giemsa-stained thin blood smears were prepared and screened for the presence of haemoparasites. Microscopic examination of the thin blood smears revealed that thirty four (34) of the sampled chickens were infected with at least one genus of haemoparasites, with overall prevalence of 17.0% for Haemoproteus, and/or Plasmodium spp. Result also revealed that single infection with Haemoproteus spp. shows higher prevalence (50.9%) than Plasmoduim spp. (29.4%) or mixed infection with Plasmodium spp. + Haemoproteus spp. (17.6%). There was higher sex specific prevalent rate in cock (20.5%) than in Hen (11.5%). There was also a strong association between sex and presence of haemoparasite in village chicken (χ²= 3.09). However, the distribution of the haemoparasites among the sex of the host chickens was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Similarly the likelihood of getting more haemoparasite in male (cock) than in female (hen) is less (OR= 0.73, and 95% CI = 0.344 − 1.561). Keywords: Prevalence, Avian Haemoparasites, Village chickens, Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria. INTRODUCTION Poultry production specifically includes chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, turkey and ostrich (Opara et al., 2012). Turkey and chicken productions however make up the main component of the commercial poultry (Opara et al., 2012). Chicken is one of the most intensively reared of the domesticated poultry species and the most developed and profitable animal production enterprise. Poultry production in Africa and parts of Asia is still distinctively divided into commercialized and village enterprise subsector, each with its peculiarities (Muchadeyi et al., 2005). The domestic chickens (Gallus domesticus) likely had its ancestry in the red jungle fowl Gallus gallus that originated from Asia. It appears that people probably domesticated chickens over 4,000 years ago, after