199 ISSN 0372-5480 Printed in Croatia VETERINARSKI ARHIV 79 (2), 199-203, 2009 Efficacy of a herbal complex against caecal coccidiosis in broiler chickens Periasamy Chandrakesan, Kathirvel Muralidharan, Vijayakumar Dinesh Kumar, Gurusamy Ponnudurai*, Tirunelveli Jeyagopal Harikrishnan, and Kandasmy Senthil Veland Natarajan Rani Department of Veterinary Parasitology, Veterinary College and Research Institute, Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, India CHaNDRaKESaN, P., K. MuRaliDHaRaN, V. D. KuMaR, G. PoNNuDuRai, T. J. HaRiKRiSHNaN, K. S. V. N. RaNi: Efficacy of a herbal complex against caecal coccidiosis in broiler chickens. Vet. arhiv 79, 199-203, 2009. aBSTRaCT The anticoccidial efficacy of a herbal complex consisting of Solanum nigram (35%), Aloe vera (15%), Moringa indica (35%) and Mentha arvensis (15%) was tested against Eimeria tenella infection in broilers. Thirty day old broiler chicks were divided into 5 experimental groups, each group having 6 chicks, and were maintained on an anticoccidial free diet. Groups A, B, C and D were challenged with 30,000 sporulated oocysts of E. tenella at day 28 of age, while group E served as the uninfected unmedicated control. After 3 days of challenge infection, the birds belonging to groups A and B were treated with herbal complex at the dose rate of 5 and 10% for 7 days continuously. Group C was fed with Salinomycin mixed feed for the same period. In the treatment groups, the birds that received 10% (group B) herbal complex showed better body mass gain between the 4 th and 5 th weeks (344.34 ± 59.81gm), superior feed conversion ratio (1.77 ± 0.43) and moderate caecal length (11.5 ± 1.19 cm). However, there was no significant difference in the oocyst output between all the treated and control groups. The body mass gain, FCR and caecal length of the uninfected unmedicated group were 461.86 ± 87.03, 1.70 ± 0.46 and 16.9 ± 1.2 cm respectively. Mortality of birds was recorded in groups A and D only. Key words: anticoccidial efficacy, herbal, Eimeria tenella, broiler introduction Coccidiosis causes considerable economic loss in the poultry industry, especially in broiler chickens. Chickens are susceptible to at least 9 species of coccidia. The most common species are Eimeria tenella, which causes the caecal coccidiosis, while E. acervulina and *Corresponding author: Dr. Gurusamy Ponnudurai, Assoc. Prof., Department of Veterinary Parasitology, Veterinary College and Research Institute, Namakkal, Tamil Nadu - 637 002, India,, E-mail: gponnu@rediffmail.com